Cisco Unity vs Microsoft Exchange

[smokeyvols]

We are building a new hospital and will be using Cisco Call Manager. We have been tasked to look at a voice mail solution for this site and one that will grow us as a corporation. We have about 10 hospitals. I was wondering if anyone had any input on Cisco Unity versus the Microsoft Exchange voice mail solution. We want to be able to access voice mails from Outlook Web Access or via cell phones synced to outlook. We currently use Call Pilot Desktop messaging which has an IMAP format for emails and they want to steer away from IMAP mailboxes. This will be our solution going ahead for all facilities and I was wondering if anyone had used either of these and how they liked them.

 

[pndscm]

Cisco Unity can use Exchange as the mail store if it installed as a Unified Messaging solution. That way all your voicemails will be in your Outlook automatically so if your Outlook syncs with your cell phones your vmails will also sync. You can also have CallManager (Version 6 and above)ring both your desk phone and cell phone simultaneously.

 

[HmmG3]

Starting with Unity 7, Cisco made Unified Messaging standard (no extra cost) primarily to compete against the Microsoft solution. So it can integrate into your Exchange infrastructure to show messages in Outlook. Last I heard the Microsoft setup has no support for MWI, so you wouldn't get a light on your phone to see if a message has arrive (bad for people not near a PC). This was a while ago, so they may have this resolved now.