Opinion on Price difference between Avaya CM and Cisco CM

[pamtea]

I need to better understand Cisco pricing vs. Avaya's. I have a basic understanding of Cisco server cluster components and various 6500/Router gateways. How does licensing work with Cisco call manager? Do they charge extra for advanced networking features? Should I be aware of other software costs (any additional software cost on Router IOS, Server, etc.)?

I have heard of stories where customers end-up paying for additional "un-anticpated" components. Want to make sure that I really understand potential hidden costs or right questions to ask.

I would appreciate it if you can share your understanding of pricing differences between Cisco and Avaya.

Is there a Cisco Call Manager configuration tool that I can use to price out design without getting it from Cisco reseller? Thank you for your help.

 

[casadeseus]

--First you have size your network, before you enter the Voip environment. You may not be ready if you are migrating from traditional voice. Keep in mind all ip base phones will need good quality CAT5 for every phone, additionally you will need to provide power to the IP phones unless you have Cisco PoE switches to provide the power to the phones (or PoE Patchpanels). Avaya will try to sell you their own prefered router brand, CSU's. Avaya's QOS is difficult to trouble shoot, specially if you have Cisco involved in the mix (finger pointing when problems arise). redundancy is well done in avaya, and Cisco. boot ups are faster in avaya, although the ip phones are better looking in cisco. If you have Cisco data products, chances are that you can get a bundle upgrade your data network and install the call managers. if you have an existing avaya product, my recomendation is to stay with avaya, you will run into lots of issues when users search for features that are not ready in cisco or that you will need to buy from 3rd party vendors. (paging thru the phones is not available). good luck