Polycom or Cisco?

We use both Aastra and Polycom phones connect to a Fonality PBX. While the Aastra phones cost about 1/3 as much as the Polycom phones (for a similar feature set), the Polycom phones have much better sound quality, especially when using the speakers. For our organization we decided to issue the Aastras to folks who have light duty (e.g. engineers, design, etc.) and Polycoms to everyone else.

One additional point to consider, most phone system vendors offer phones through them and will charge you to pre-configure the phone to work with their system (I think this may be up to $50 / phone in our case). Polycom phones do offer a nice HTML configuration interface, if you are will to do the configuration yourself, you can shop around for the best price.

I think the differences of the phones are pretty specifc to the environment they are in. While Cisco offers great feature and function on their Call Manager I think Polycom clearly brings a great long term solutions to the consumer. Purchase of a quality IP phone is the most important part of any communications investment. It is a compeling decision to you go with the solution that is agnostic to the call control systems. I can say there are cost factors that effect the purchase however ROI and overall quality and function....Polycom is the one. Oh and by the way, HD voice.... it's not a gimmick! Hearing is believeing, and yes there is a substantial difference.

We use all 3 and are a hosted provider, you may want to go with us and you can try all 3 phones and select which one you like.

Polycom is the best SIP stack no issues at all - high Def Audio (G722) and they even have SIP Video Phones that work flawlessly over our service, We have seen multiple issues with Cisco - they fix something in their new firmware and break another feature.
Aastra is just low end (Quality) and not feature rich.

I have been offering and supporting hosted VoIP solutions for over 5 years now. We started with the Cisco product line, but switched to Polycom about 3 years ago. The Polycoms have been great. Good quality, value and functionality.

Best of luck!

I'm going to toss in my admittedly biased $.02. I work for Polycom and have in my own home lab some of our competitors' phones. Some of them are quite well made with a decent feature set and some aren't. I'd be happy to put the Polycom phones up against any of them as I believe Polycom makes a superior product in terms of audio quality, reliability and feature support. Polycom also supports more features with a greater number of SIP platform partners than Polycom's competitors. Provisioning is very easy using XML files and a configuration utility is typically built into most of Polycom's partners' platforms.

Most hosted providers pre-provision the phones and the phones should be plug-and-play for the customer. Some of the hosted providers haven't figured out how to do this yet and they typically have other issues supporting service as well. Polycom phones do require a reboot to apply a change in configuration, but this doesn't happen frequently. Troubleshooting VoIP issues aren't difficult with Polycom phones either as they support several logging methods and real-time RTCP-XR reporting.

Lastly when considering a hosted VoIP provider be very careful in selecting one that offers a bring-your-own-broadband model. A lot of the BYOB service providers cannot meet SLAs. Make certain if one considers this option that the service providers does a proper assesment of one's internet connection and that the service provider does some sort of proactive monitoring.

Good luck with your evaluation. Let us know which way you choose to go, please.

I posted a few days ago about ShoreTel. My comments aren't her... Hmm....

Anyway, I'm not in sales. I am an IT Director and just migrated from a Nortel CS-1000 with Contact Center 6 to ShoreTel. I never been 100% pleased with a Telecom decision, until now that is -- ShoreTel has EXCEEDED our expectations.

There is a very legitimate reason that they close 87% of the deals when they are equally considered with Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, Mitel, etc. Because they are EASY and they WORK - as advertised... And no CCVP is needed on staff.

This answer depends on three factors: what you are looking for in an IP phone, how much you want to spend and which hosted or premise VoIP provider you decide to sign with.

If you are looking for more robust functionality in an IP phone or like the look of a big, fancy phone at the front desk or in your office, I would definitely look into Cisco. Cisco tends to be pretty expensive so purchasing one of their IP phone gives off a certain image to your potential and existing clients that functionality matters more to you than price does. Some hosted solutions also work with Linksys routers (a division of Cisco) so the clearest connection will most likely be with their IP phones.

Polycom offers similar functionality for about a third of the price. The phones are more standard and the company specializes in call bridges. Most hosted phone systems are compatible with Polycom phones so if something happens with the service you sign with and you have to find another provider, you will still be able to use your Polycom IP phones. The same rule of thumb generally works with premise based systems, unless it's proprietary such as Avaya, which only works with Avaya IP phones.

Aastra also has nice phones and specializes in working with open-source phone systems. Most hosted providers aren't compatible with this company but if you are looking for a cost-effective solution, they are a great contender in the market.

I was the sales and ops manager for Nexogy a Hosted and managed VoIP provider. We were a Cisco Shop. As much as I disliked the product when I sold against it when I was with Avaya, the Cisco phones are outstanding in quality especially while on the speaker phone. In fact, we had customers trade in their Poly's to use the Cisco's. I would go with the Cisco sets bottom line.

Wow! Thanks for the great feedback.

Chris, I'll have to check out Snom a little more. Their touch screen desktop phone looks very interesting and modern. Appreciate the link.

Our budget might steer us away from Cisco and more towards Polycom, but I'm still a little curious. Do you guys know of any good resources available? Maybe something that compares the two against each other on paper.

Thank you for a great question.

Cisco sets are good, and expensive.
You are also locked into Cisco as your switch selection.

Polycom and Aastra are switch agnostic, and Polycom is the only one to offer HD voice across the entire phone portfolio from inexpensive to elaborate.

Let me know if you have questions going forward. 303-579-7239.

All three are good. As always, before you evaluate the phones re-visit the business requirements and application the user is going to be doing. I think it is important to determine the system first and than evaluate phones after that decision is made. For hosted systems, the provider might claim all SIP phones are compatable, however, they might recommend (or NOT recommend) certain phones. So the vendor will be a good source of information. It should eventually come down to price/performance. I would also standardize on a brand. Makes it much easier for provisioning and support.

You may want to consider snom phones. snom has been developing open SIP phones for twelve plus years and offer great quality, performance, and features at an affordable price. The color touch screen snom 870 referenced by others also supports the ability to connect via wireless LAN(802.11 b/g/n), HD/wideband audio, POE Gig-E switch for your PC and is available in light and dark colors. I will suggest going with a PBX that supports industry standard SIP protocol to provide you with more options in designing your new phone system. Call me with any additional questions(925)415-0170.

Why limit yourselves to simply 3 choices of PBX? Besides if you go with a hosted solution the main benefit is the service and support!! One could say with today's available technology, an onsite PBX for a hosted service is nothing but a single point of failure!! Feel free to contact me and will be glad to let you know some of the benefits. Cheers and good luck.

We have all three (Aastra, Cisco, & Polycom) phones in service I have a few observations that you may find helpful. All three in my opinion are relatively easy to configure from a configuration file perspective. Firmware and Bootroms can be a bit more of a headache on the Polycom and Cisco lines particularly if you have a veriety of models in use; Aastra seems to be the easiest to manage.

Occasionally we’ve needed to reach out to the manufacturer for assistance or clarification on configuration and operation of one of the phones. Aastra hands down has proven to be the most accessible and forthcoming with information in a timely manner, we can speak to an engineer generally the same day we make an inquiry. Cisco and Polycom aren’t quite as accessible or quick to respond.

I consider the Cisco phones to be the Cadillac phone with a price tag that comes with it. In my opinion the Polycom speakerphones are hands down the best out there, we’ve had some issues with some of the older phones however such as DTMF keypads failing after only 2-3 years in a office environment. If I had to make a bulk phone purchase today it would be Aastra based on the value for the money and the support available from the manufacturer.

Good luck in your purchase!

--Bob

I think the theme in a good amount of these reponses is that the system you should be looking at should fit your needs vs. buying becasue of a brand name. Another company that you could look at is Digital Planet that can help you diagnose what your needs are. 651-233-5830 and speak with Johnathon Watkins. By the way, I have no affiliation with them, I just have worked on numerous projects with them, and trust them implicitly.

Choice - the power of VOIP.

I do like Chris Nordman's answers, but I would most strongly agree with his position on Polycom. Especially consider their HD offerings, the clarity will blow you away - even those callers that do not have HD (yet, coming), they will notice a difference. Polycom is known for their ability to deliver excellent voice quality.

While boot up might be longer, this is only a very minor issue and not worth a concern.

The devices are reliable, feature rich, and will offer you more than your past Nortel devices when fronting a hosted or premise based solution.

My second choice would be Aastra, and my third would be Snom.

Chose a provider to work with for their deliverable, pricing, support, etc. Then ask them to 'demo' their service - be that in your prem or their prem - and ask them to lay out each device in front of you. Then ask them to show them 'your future configuration' on each telephone device - play with it, see how it works for you - like a good hammer, balance and feel is what you will be stuck with going forward, so you should be happy. Think also of your other users - will 'the device of choice' work for them? Do you mix and match? Since they offer multiple handsets from multiple manufacturers, then maybe a choice for the users will work? If it is hosted, I am sure the provider will not care who you choose either way.

It sounds as though a bunch of the responses on this link are sales guys trying to build supporting documentation for someone interested in purchasing. I.e a Sales Tactic...

In order to provide a solution, the needs have to be uncovered. Each phone offers benefits based on the end users needs. If you had a family of ten, think about the vehicle you would purchase. Most likely not a two door sports car. Let the smart comments fly...o.k. now. Explain your need to the company offering the solution(s). If you only have one option in phone sets, run to a different company and ask questions.

?'s phone me 817.329.5521 x465 I'm the pro.

Any reason your not looking at ShoreTel? Extreamly reliable,feature rich and very easy for the end user to make adds moves and changes.

You have received quite a bit of very useful information, from some very knowledgeable individuals. By now your head may be spinning, given the many choices of vendor solutions. Clearly, without knowing your environment and what your future plans for growth, limits the input to speculations and produces many more questions than answers.
I would like to offer some advice, not so much from an equipment or software vendor side, but from your end user perspective.You stated that you "are moving off Nortel and we used to love their phones". One of the most important factors that should enter into your decision, should revolve around the user community; how they use their phones, what type of service and features they use today to conduct their business, what will they accept in the way of change. What kind of change advocates are they? Changing your community's desktop instrument is tramatic enough, but when you also change the way they have been conducting their business in the past, your may create a recipe for disaster. If you can anticipate what sort of change will be brought about with the platform decision you make, and address it with them ahead of time, you will save yourself some big headaches. I am not saying that your choice of vendors should be made exclusivey on how you operate your business today, but it should be one of the major components in your decision.
Good luck in your purchase. Contact me directly should you require additional input. I can be reached at cfpesce@comcast.net.
Regards,
Carmine

I've been in the UC (Unified Communications) business for over 15 years. I now work for Allstream in Canada and we are vendor agnostic in our approach, we also are authorized resellers for many leading products such as Cisco, Mitel, Nortel/Avaya, Microsoft, Panasonic, Tandberg, Polycom among others. As a National network provider in Canada, we can also provide remote hosted, UC managed/monitored solutions as well.

Each client's environment and budget is different. Some look for a quick fix, others for a long term solution, involving more technology and network investments, which will provide eventually provide productivity gains and R.O.I. Some clients have the resources to "manage" many IT and Telecom tasks themselves, some don't. In general, my advice is at first, always to look at your possible upgrade paths starting from what you have now. I am sure if your company has an existing PBX and phones (IP or not), investments (big or small) were made to acquire this technology in the past. The idea is to use or at least leverage most of your prior investments. Most leading manufacturer offer competitive migration options or if you are looking at a complete forklift for another product, most also offer competitive displacement programs. In general, at least for a short-term fix, it will be less costly to remain with the same manufacturer. In your case, with a legacy Nortel system, you must be comfortable in understanding your options and product roadmap with the recent Nortel/Avaya annoucements. Information has started to come out in recent weeks, but customer facing information, migration options and product roadmaps should be more in clear in upcoming months.

If after a complete assessment, the decision is to proceed with a complete forklift, then you can evaluate other products.

In my opinion, you must consider the players that are in the Gartner magic quadrant. Players in the top right quadrant have and will usually past the test of time (very important...who knows where some software companies will be 10 years from now), reliability, market share...etc. Also, selecting a product who can be supported by many service providers can provide added security for your management team when making the purchasing decision, in case of failed implementation or other. Making sure that someone else can support you if your system goes down, during an emergency or major project is also key.

You must also, consider key applications such as call center requirements, call recording, mobility integration, collaboration, presence, videoconferencing (...and more) and business drivers for your company. Some manufacturers offer "out-of-the-box" applications that will fit your needs or may also have alliances with 3rd-party compatible products with specialized vertical applications. Having a good understanding of the manufacturer's roadmap, alliances, supported devices (ex: mobile devices) and protocols will help you choose the right solution(s) for your business.

Select a vendor that can support not only the IP-PBX system that will be installed, but who can support or at least understand your entire environment including your network, corportate directories, LAN and WAN, security, head office and and remote branches requirements, your Microsoft or mailserver environment and more is also now required versus just installing a phone system.

I hope these tips can help you making the right decision.

Patrice Boies

I find most of the responses to your question have good practical advise.
As a Telecom professional of almost 40 years, I know it is very easy to get caught up in the hype of new technology. However, you should approach this issue as a business decission not a technology decission. Therefore you should perform a needs analysis to determine what problems you have and what alternative solutions are available. Much consideration should be given to the incumbant as you have an investment which may still have value.

Brett,

Thinking Phone Networks is a hosted VoIP provider and we integrate voice with business applications. We are particularly successful in assisting clients with multiple locations who would like to be able to increase their productivity and management visibility into day-to-day activities. We are able to cut telecommunications costs by 30-40% as a result of our integrated approach.
Thinking Phone Networks provides telecommunications services to such companies as Century 21 Real Estate, Arm & Hammer, and Sapient, helping each:
• Dramatically lower their communications costs by 20 percent or more.
• Eliminate costly onsite telecommunications equipment.
• Lower associated hardware and software maintenance costs.
• Fully backed up, 5 redundant data centers
• Integrate multiple locations
• Eliminating maintenance fees
• Streamlining your billing-one bill for all your locations

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me at the number below.

Rick Lincoln
Account Manager

P: 617.649.1510 F: 617.649.1511
54 Washburn Avenue, Cambridge MA 02140

You stated in your posting that you love your current phone. If you go with a product that is standards based, using SIP, you can keep your current phones. Look at the Citel product as an example.

We have had good results with their product as an interface between SIP and the proprietary products from Avay,Nortel, Mitel, Toshiba, and Panasonic.

The cost savings are great as well. Don't need to throw out the bathtub when the water is dirty.

The vendors you have spoken to are the first way to go, after you know what you want in terms of a solution.

The main difference between what you have today, in Nortel, is that the world is so open, and there are so many choices.

Settling on a platform - hosted or premise based - is first. Once you have done that, then likely a few choices will be automatically eliminated.

I have some bias towards Polycom, but depending on your platform choice, you will likely find them to be the most elloquant to use, and, with some of the software offerings that can be layered on to them, they can be the most powerful - HD voice is a nice touch too.

With anything outside of Cisco, just make sure that you are working with an implementation/support vendor who can deliver a solution on-time, on-budget and that does this day in, day out, with references. Buy a solution that is 'known', and that can be supported by others, just in case.

With Cisco, be prepared to pay more and not necessarily get more - it is not the best, there is better - but what they have is solid, dependable, and (in most cases) the vendors are solid too.

I follow the 'It's unwise to pay too much, but worse to pay too little' philosophy - shop around, use benchmarked requirements across all, and evaluable like for like - pick a vendor with a fair price for their solution.

But do stay away from Aastra - not very elloquant to use.

I have been providing hosted solutions since 2005 in the uk.

I have used Cisco and Polycom - in my experience Cisco gets the vote everytime. They are robust and intuitive handsets, not something I would say about Polycom.

With hosted solutions Polycom can take upto 3 mins to rebooot following a Broadband outage (doesn't happen often if your network is properly engineered).Cisco is immediate.

If you would like to discuss this further, please call me on 07957 801967.

Best regards, Richard

Surely you have more options available to you than that - what about Avaya for example? Is it just PBX you are after, or some applications and workflow integration for example - mobility etc?

you can call our sales at (866) 434-4404. Also visit www.simplesignal.com

Hello, Did you even look at Mitel. They are a worldwide leader in IP/PBX sales with a 30+ year history in the Telecom Industry. Don't buy into the hype . . . look at the track record, feature functionality, and dollar for dollar value. I've worked on hundreds of installs over my 20+ years in this industry, 10 years ago cisco wasn't in the PBX market.

The previous answer was fine if you were only talking about telephones. If you loved your Nortel telephones, you will find using standard SIP/VoIP telephones is a very different operation. You would be much better purchasing an IP PBX. You will get many advantages, simplicity, Cost Savings and phones and features that are user friendly plus a huge savings over a hosted system. When you have an open platform IP PBX, your system will not be obsolete any time soon. Hosted is sold through the premise that a system will be obsolete so why own it. New technologies are available with simple software upgrades that can be free of cost and keep your IP PBX system current. True Unified Communications that will allow Voice, Fax and email messages all in your inbox allowing access to your messages using a PC or mobile device from anywhere in the world. Can't get to a PC? Simply use any telephone to access your inbox and listen to voicemail or have email messages read back to you.

In a meeting but anxiously awaiting an important call? The system can deliver the one call you want and send all others to your Voice Mail.

Callers can say the name of the person they are calling eliminating the need to know the extension or go to the directory before connecting. Dialing out, just say a name in your SPD directory and the call will be dialed for you.

These are just some of the ways to improve communication and enhance productivity. It is well worth looking into. Why pay more and get less?

The comments posted consist of good, sound advise. I believe I can add a few comments to further assist. Our firm provides this service for a fee however our assistance will be at no charge to you providing we can keep our time commitment to within a couple of hours. ~ Bill Barnidge, The Lamar Group, 949-248-3880

Brett, come to ComVoice, we give you those swanky Cisco phones that cost hundreds of $$$ for free. And our phone service is guaranteed cheaper by 10%. Best deal in this recession for sure. We would be happy to have you as a customer.