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Originally Posted by wildcattdw
I was asked to look at bringing in Cisco Call Manager boxes, as a comparison in both the long and short terms.
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Avaya, the number one selling voice platform on the face of the planet, has a robust VoIP offering that integrates your legacy investment with the cutting edge of technology of tomorrow. Cisco is a fine company and the industry leader on the data side of the house. However, Cisco doesn't do VoIP any better than Avaya. This fact is undisputed by most everyone except Cisco. You must give considerable weight to the sizable investment you've already made in your industry-leading platform.
... And, do you have an Avaya call center with CMS? Call centers live and die on statistical reporting and Cisco has NOTHING comparable to CMS. Your call center executives and managers will be sending guys with crooked noses to pay you a visit following a Cisco migration.
However, it's likely that your organization has a CIO or IT Executive with a heavy data background and a hardon for Cisco. This is an all too common scenerio. I can point you to many die-hard Cisco IT Executives who firmly believe that Cisco makes the finest data hardware on the planet and would not even entertain the thought of another product in their data racks ... but who have also threatened to throw their Cisco representation out of the building if he mentions the word "voice" again.
Finally, I offer you this word of caution: Don't allow Cisco to perform their "dog and pony" show without also affording Avaya the exact same opportunity ... and TELL Avaya in advance that you're doing a head to head comparison with Cisco. That's only fair since Cisco will know in advance what they're attempting to displace. Cisco can be quite persuasive ... but I can tell you of more than one Cisco Call Manager that replaced an Avaya system and was ripped out a short time later.
This is not an easy prospect ... and the stakes are high. Tread lightly and employ due consideration.
regs,
.al.