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Avaya vs. ShoreTel: What are the main differences?
For a mid-range phone system, what are the main differences between Avaya and ShoreTel's offerings?
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2 Answers
Patrick,
The main difference between these two systems depends on which Avaya system you are looking at. If you are speaking of the Avaya IP Office, then the main difference is the hybrid technology that Avaya is built on versus the all IP platform that is inherent to the ShoreTel. That means that you can still use digital phones on the IP Office while running IP applications. The ShoreTel platform is more aligned with comparing to this Avaya system. Now if you are comparing them to Avaya's Communication Manager, then that's another story. ShoreTel doesn't have the call center features, vectoring capabilities or security that make the Avaya Communication Manager shine. Avaya Communication Manager is still the #1 system in the call center space with Cisco running a close second.
With that said, ShoreTel has built a really nice VoIP system from the ground up that plays on ease of use and simple installations. Give them a few years and I think they will be up there with the best as long as they have a good go to market strategy; which has been their achilles heel.
If you need more detailed information regarding comparisons between these two, feel free to reach out to me directly. I have current marketing info on both.
Regards,
Derek Roush
VocalPoint Consulting Group
derek@vocalpointcg.com
One thing these both have in common is they don't fully embrace the open standards that are so common today. While most companies are moving towards Open Standards and SIP, these companies are slow to move. If you are looking for open standards based products - these companies are not going to offer this to you most all of their products.
Shoretel relies on MGCP, which most companies have gone away from. They seem to be the darling of the commercial VOIP systems - but you are buying into a proprietary system in many respects. Shoretel has a very strong support for unified messaging.
Most Avaya/Nortel systems, while they might use VOIP, they are proprietary. For instance, the Nortel PBX primarily uses Unistem, a proprietary VOIP implementation. You can see some smathering of SIP in their systems, but as a whole they are not SIP products.
One Avaya/Nortel product is the Software Communications Server or SCS which is a 100% SIP implementation that was aquired when they bought Pingtel and their Sip Foundry Open Source commercial product.
The SIP Foundry Open source product has now split, and is offered commercially via Avaya, eZuce, and others.
Avaya has a very diversified platform, that is known and recognized for its carrier grade 5 9's reliability for enterprise, whether it is the original Avaya platform, or the old Nortel Platform. They scale from 1 to 10's of thousands of extensions.
Both of these companies sell through resellers. Your service level will depend on what company you chose to purchase through. However, having several companies in your area that sell the platform will allow you to leverage them for the service level you desire - both having multiple sales channels is a benefit to you as a buyer.
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