Avaya CM versus Cisco Call Manager 3

[telcomwork]

Has anyone looked into the PROs and CONS comparing these two venders technologies for call processing, call centers, benefits of ussing exsisting digital technology (Avaya) over Cisco or vice versa, ....

My company HQ uses Cisco Call Managers, but our building uses Avaya. We are currently on R11. Soon enough someone will be making a decision for us wether we are going to be moving to Cisco or staying with Avaya. I would like to aid in this decision by having some supporting documentation for one or the other.

I love Avaya and it's what I'm used to, but at the same time I want to start doing some homework and traning of we are changing directions...

Thanks again,
Jeff

 

[TykeUK]

I have always worked with Avaya switches from R300's through to s8700's. When i started work for this company we had 1 site with a G3si R6, and 6 smaller remote offices with cisco call managers.
To be honest I hated call manager. The administration side is no where near as neat as ASA, and the call centre options ie hunt groups etc were poor.
I recently ripped out all the call managers and installed G700's and have never looked back since.

 

[NewbieCarol]

Jeff, was a decision ever made regarding the Cisco Call Manager? Our company (one location) has been using Avaya products for years. We are currently on a G3si R12 (CM 2.0), have CMS, Audix, Avaya IR 1.2, etc. We had a new boss start in the middle of last year and he came from a Cisco IP environment. A much smaller size company in terms of call center. Now he too is talking about changing from Avaya to Cisco Call Manager.

 

[janaya]

He is only talking about changing because he is used to the Cisco phone and how it works. I have seen these types of people come in (as many of you have) and want to switch to the system they are comfortable with, but ususally sticker shock brings them back to reality.

John

 

[Redder]

Our company is going through the same problem. So to solve the problem our company signed extended leases on our Definity systems for three years, which we will own at the end. Since our CIO and the IT guys are pro Cisco, we are looking at moving from the current platform within three years. I did the comparisons, received quotes from AVAYA and Cisco; the cost for AVAYA upgrades $800K. VS. The cost to Cisco $5.5M, me thinks the CIO is somewhat prejudice. So they decide to merge voice and data under the data group and I am now packing my belongings. On top of that, we now have a Cisco consultant in to do the review I just completed. I think the numbers are going to look the same since the quotes were passed on directly to management.
Over all both systems provide nice solutions. However, Cisco still has a lot to learn about telephony. If you have a lot of networked locations Cisco is not the answer.


D
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." Albert Einstein

 

[NewbieCarol]

Jeff, was a decision ever made regarding the Cisco Call Manager? Our company (one location) has been using Avaya products for years. We are currently on a G3si R12 (CM 2.0), have CMS, Audix, Avaya IR 1.2, etc. We had a new boss start in the middle of last year and he came from a Cisco IP environment. A much smaller size company in terms of call center. Now he too is talking about changing from Avaya to Cisco Call Manager.

 

[NewbieCarol]

VTCI: are you packing your belongings voluntarily?

 

[Redder]

Voluntarily no. The voice techs now report to the Network data manager. Poor guy does not have a clue regarding voice or PBX's, and will have to deal with that problem for at least two more years. Understand many companies, as convergence moves forward will continue to make the same moves as our company has done. Unfortunately many voice personnel will be ones looking for jobs unless they update their education. In my case, I have my Cisco certifications but you do not need two managers to run a department. Since I am not pro Cisco the decision was easy for our company to make.
So how does one convince management a forklift change out is not the correct choice, I think that takes us back to Jeff's question.


D
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." Albert Einstein

 

[telcomwork]

Carol, no we haven't made a decision. I learned that we are keeping the G3R for until at least the end of 2005 so we have a little bit of time. It's so complicated because we have a many call centers that have tons of logic involved. If they do want to go CallManagers I need answers on:

Who's going to translate all the logic from Avaya to Cisco.
Can you do skills based routing, TOD, VRT tables, tracing, how does CMS tie into Cisco or is there an equivelent, are we going to have to replace all the phones (probably yes), How the NICE Call-Focus tie into Cisco, can you do Vu-Stats type of monitoring, ... I could go on and on adn on as you all know. I just hope whatever decision is made it's though out, well planned, financially makes sense balanced with we lose no functionality adn hopefully gain some...

Sorry for the delay, been so busy lately!

If possible can we get a laundry list of questions to ask Cisco as well as features ...

If so I'll start with the items I mentioned above and go from there. If someone updates just copy what preceeds you post for one continous stream, unless of course this is forbidden or a bad idea...

 

[nohuhu]

yratellim,

my 2 cents:

http://emea-businesspartner.avaya.com/pb/news/downloads/bcr-large-ip-pbx.pdf

 

[telcomwork]

Thanks dwalin!

 

[RTMCKEE]

Don't underestimate Cisco ability to over promise their solution. Every Sales tech that comes in will answer everyone of yratellim's questions with a yes. (period) They forget to leave off the part of "for a price".

Cisco sold this boondoggle at my last company under the illusion of "you have to upgrade your routers anyways". Looking at upgrading the existing network for ~3mill and the phone network for ~3mill the ~5mill "converged solution" looks really good. Alot gets touted about "open systems" and how anyone's eq will work with thier system. (again for a price). Ask polycom how well their IP desk phone is selling these days?? Cisco pressured them out of the hard phone market.

The company I was at never really dug into the numbers OR did ANY home work on this. They would not listen to the voice folks, they thought we were just biased. I've said it before in other posts on this site, our install was ~2mill over budget and VERY unstable!

Cisco was writing patches on the fly for our install. Has avaya ever done that for any G3 systems? I think not. All of ciscos voice eq is dissimilar systems. Unlike avaya where you pay to have something turned on (for a hugh price, ill admit) cisco you have to buy xyz and plug it into abc, just as if you were tying xyz into a TDM phone system.

How long does router code last? 18 months 2 years? once you change router code you go thru all the aches and pains for upgrading all the other software in the solution.

The same company put in G3si in 30 sites in '97 and NEVER touched them again.. then in 2003 could not figure out how come the "AVAYAs" could not deliver the features they wanted. We were running v5s! I'll bet $2.12 that they will be upgrading the cisco solution before 7 years! anyone want to take that bet?

We rolled the cisco solution out to 100 sites, it took 9 months. On the upgrade scale that only leaves 9 months in production before something needs upgrading.( did i say windows based servers?)

Dont get me started on the Reporting or ACD functions of the cisco (or lack there of) all of our acd report had to be custom written by our integrator... oh and the numbers never matched the carrier reports. ($300 an hour down the drain)

Seriously do your research and ask for references of installs the same size as yours. Also ask the AVAYA reps for RECENT installs of big switches and find out if those folks had cisco!

RTMCKEE

 

[telcomwork]

So far my experiance has been Cisco CallManager can handle striaght forward voice (VoIP or TDM) in the context of call forwarding, voice mail, ... but I have not seen or heard that Cisco can reliably handle a call center environment, let alone one that is dynamic and large handling 100s of calls/day with major business ramification and routing on the line.

I appreciate everyones input and unbiased feedback!

Thank you!

 

[BIS]

Hmm,
This just in:

http://news.com.com/Cisco+wins+back+Merrill+Lynch/2100-1037_3-5568452.html?tag=nefd.top

 

[telcomwork]

Interesting. Thanks BIS