Enterprise Phone Systems Comparison Guide

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Timothy Armstrong
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1 Enterprise Phone s Comparison Guide

2 Introduction Internet Protocol (IP) telephony is increasingly replacing traditional PBX technologies at all types and sizes of companies. However, most businesses can t simply replace all of their incumbent telephony in one fell swoop. Instead, decision makers like you must look carefully at what s available, what you ve got and what you need. Once you ve surveyed the market and identified and prioritized your specific business needs, you re challenged to craft your best possible short list of candidates. And this comparison guide, designed for midsize and large enterprises, is here to help. Table of Contents Comparison Factors: Why we asked the questions we asked...p. 3 The Comparison Grids: Detailed comparisons of product, pricing and vendor considerations...p. 5 Vendor Profiles: Thumbnail descriptions of included vendors...p. 15 Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

3 Comparison Factors Solutions and vendors found to meet these requirements were included in this comparison guide based upon analysis and comparison of product, cost and vendor considerations. Those solutions and vendors were also evaluated in terms of market prominence, after interviews and discussions with industry analysts, other experts and users. You should keep in mind that this guide is focused on solutions intended for enterprises that are typically larger and/or in need of more sophisticated features than those required by small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Many SMBs are finding their voice communications needs being well met by smaller and/or less comprehensive solutions than those featured here. Some of the vendors featured in this guide also offer solutions optimized for smaller companies and/or simpler deployments, as indicated by the Offers small business alternative? column in the Vendor Considerations section of the comparison grid. Those offerings are not featured here, as VoIP-News does not consider them truly enterprise-class solutions. However, your company may have needs better met by the solutions discussed in this guide, even if your company is not a large enterprise. VoIP-News recommends that you use its SMB Phone s Comparison Guide and your own resources, to identify and prioritize your business specific needs accurately and completely, and to best determine the candidate solutions and vendors most likely to meet those needs. In order to be included in this guide, an enterprise phone system must respond to areas of concern buyers have when considering a solution. These are: Product considerations: including basic, intermediate and advanced product features and delivery platforms Cost considerations: including price, fees, hidden costs and ROI analysis Vendor considerations: including vendor viability, support, services and consulting. Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

4 Vendor Selection To be considered for inclusion in this guide, solutions and their vendors must meet the following minimum requirements. Solutions must interoperate with incumbent voice communications systems and phones. Vendors must offer integration and consulting services, directly or through partners. Solutions must support integrated or optional application integration, unified communications (UC) and unified messaging. Solutions must support at least limited integration with incumbent third-party hardware, including PBXes and analog phones. Solutions must support distributed/multisite deployments (and consolidated management). Solutions must support customer-driven customization via application programming interfaces (APIs) and/or included software development kit (SDK). Vendors must have at least two years of experience supporting advanced environments. Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

5 Product Considerations: Basic Features Hosted or on-premise delivery? Software-based IP PBX? Web-based management tool? Number of calls per hour Both Up to 300,000 BHCC Both 360,000 NEC SV9500 Both 46,000 BHCA Both or Hybrid 25,000 per server 500,000 per system On-premise No, self-contained basic cabinet 12,000 BHCAs Toshiba: IPedge On-premise Traffic Rate (BHCA) 6000 Toshiba: VIPedge Hosted Traffic Rate (BHCA) 6000 Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

6 Product Considerations: Basic Features (continued) Number of simultaneous calls? Number of integrated telephony services? capacity? Voice conferencing? Only limited by the number of users and trunks ,000 users / node, networked to 100K+ 100 per second Hundreds Up to 15,000 NEC SV9500 Unlimited ,000 IP stations per node; 192,000 per Fusion Network. TDM: Stations and trunks up to 6,144 maximum ports per node Unlimited Unknown 30,000 end points Unlimited ,000 users per system Toshiba: IPedge Non-blocking Architecture & Dialing 300 Toshiba: VIPedge Up to 1,000 users and 440 trunk/ lines simultaneously VIPedge can support up to 500 users and 260 trunk/ lines simultaneously Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

7 Product Considerations: Advanced Features API/SDK included? Built-in security? CRM integration? Soft phone client? Supports thirdparty IP phones? Supports multiple office sites? NEC SV9500 Limited to SIP phones, via networked systems Toshiba: IPedge (SIP based), up to 128 networked systems Toshiba: VIPedge (SIP based) Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

8 Product Considerations: Advanced Features (continued) Unified messaging included? Unified Communications suite included? VPN? Video conferencing? Web conferencing? (optional) No. Available as a thirdparty add-on. No NEC SV9500 via H.264 SIP Toshiba: IPedge Compatible Integrated audio, video conferencing with Web collaboration Toshiba: VIPedge No No Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

9 Product Considerations: Built-in IP Telophony Features Advanced business communications services? Hotel communications services? Auto-attendant services? Contact/call center services? No NEC SV9500, using Middleware application No, via optional NEC application No. Available as an add-on No. Available as an add-on SMDR output for Hotel PMS Toshiba: IPedge systems. Mail boxes can be put into hotel mode for the guest rooms. No. Available as an add-on Toshiba: VIPedge Mail boxes can be put into hotel mode for the guest rooms. No Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

10 Product Considerations: Built-in IP Telophony Features (continued) Emergency services? Call recording and reporting? Fax server? Mobile communications? No NEC SV9500 No. Available as a third-party add-on No. Available as a third-party add-on No. Available as an add-on No. Available as an add-on No. Available as an add-on Toshiba: IPedge Enhance 911 compatible No. Available as an add-on No. Available as an add-on Toshiba: VIPedge Enhance 911 compatible No No. Apps for Apple and Android devices Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

11 Product Considerations: Built-in IP Telophony Features (continued) Multiple language support? Text-to-speech? Operator console? Voice mail? NEC SV9500 No. Available as a third-party add-on No. Available as an add-on Limited No. Available as an add-on No. Available as an add-on Toshiba: IPedge Limited No No. Available as an add-on Toshiba: VIPedge No No No Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

12 Product Considerations: Platform Distributed Architecture? Operating system? Supports SOA? Server? Linux Appliance, Generic or Virtual Windows Industry-standard Intel servers NEC SV9500 Linux Proprietary Appliance Server or General Purpose VMware server or Fault Tolerant server Windows 2008 R2 or 2012 Industry Standard servers Proprietary embedded OS No Self-contained base cabinet VMWare ESXi 5.5. Preinstalled. Toshiba: IPedge IPedge applications run on CentOS Linux 5.4, while Windows applications run on Windows 7 64-bit operating system No Third-party Server Platforms Toshiba: VIPedge No CentOS Linux 5.4 No Data Center Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

13 Cost Considerations Base price? Integrates with incumbent PBX? Supports incumbent third-party hardware? Supports incumbent analog phones? Payment model options Starts at $100/user, SIP phones Capex or Opex Cloud Service Starts at $130/user (does not include services; varies with configuration and capacity) License, Subscription (hosted) NEC SV9500 Varies-Contact authorized dealer for details Server, License or Gateway $199/User Capex or Opex Toshiba: IPedge Toshiba: VIPedge $350 to $500/user; varies with endpoint device $240 to $500/user; varies with advanced applications A total of $15-$25 per user per month (Price includes trunks) License License License Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

14 Vendor Considerations Length of time in business Offers small business alternative? How purchased? Support services available? 100+ years Business Partners 21 years Directly and through channel partners Directly and through channel partners NEC SV9500 SV9500 was released August NEC has been in communications business for 100+ years NEC ESU Direct channel and Authorized NEC Associates s integration and development services via NEC Corporation of America 100+ years, MBSE Packages License/Package Since 1875 Through Certified Toshiba Dealers s integration and development services via NEC Corporation of America Technical Support available to all Toshiba Dealers Toshiba: IPedge Since 1875 Through Certified Toshiba Dealers Toshiba: VIPedge Since 1875 Through Certified Toshiba Dealers Technical Support available to all Toshiba Dealers Technical Support available to all Toshiba Dealers Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

15 Vendor Profiles Alcatel-Lucent Interactive Intelligence Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is an experienced communication vendor installed in 500,000 enterprise customers. Full enterprise communication portfolio with UC, data networking and wireless products and services. For more information: Alcatel-Lucent OpenTouch Solutions ( OpenTouch&page=overview) First vendor to offer single-platform, standardsbased software architecture running multichannel applications (unified communications). First vendor to offer enterprise-grade, multi-tenant, distributed cloud platform built for multi-use cases: customer engagement, unified communications and collaboration. For more information: NEC Toshiba UNIVERGE IP architecture is specifically designed to unify multimedia networks. Complete communications package including unified communications, unified messaging, management, mobility and other key business applications. For more information: Telecommunication s Division offers range of IP telephony solutions (8-1,200 ports). Offers industry s only seven-year manufacturer s extended warranty. For more information: Ziff Davis / Comparison Guide / Enterprise Phone Comparison Guide Ziff Davis

E X P E R I E N C E T H E EDGE

E X P E R I E N C E T H E EDGE EXPERIENCE THE EDGE The Right Call For Your Business One of your most important business assets is your IP communication system. The right system gives you the power to attract customers, increase productivity,