Vendor Responses
RFP submissions were received from the following vendors: Cisco Systems, Avaya, Nortel, Mitel Networks, Siemens Communications, NEC Unified, ShoreTel, 3Com, Aastra Intecom and Ericsson. Each of these vendors participated in the panel at VoiceCon, except for the latter two owing to time constraints.
Each of the submissions was professionally prepared and generally followed the proposal guidelines in the RFP. An annually reccurring problem, however, is that a few vendors sometimes disregard the RFP’s entreaty for responses to be brief and concise. Although the TEQConsult Group RFP was designed to solicit individual responses on a very specific requirement, many responses addressed non-germane issues or answered questions not asked. This detracted from the professionalism of the document. Too much information is sometimes bad information, because it makes assessing the response more difficult. Should you as a customer prepare and distribute an RFP, expect to receive submissions that sometimes look like they were cut and pasted from a product description guide, unless you clearly establish response guidelines and word count limits.
CISCO SYSTEMS
Cisco proposed a distributed single-cluster Unified Communications Manager solution to satisfy the basic IP telephony system requirements. At headquarters facilities, Cisco proposed redundant subscriber call servers in each of the equipment rooms and its Unified Survivable Site Remote Telephony (SRST) options at the regional and satellite offices for local survivability.
Unified Communications Manager can currently support up to four distributed subscriber call servers (supporting up to 7,500 IP stations per server); individual IP station instruments can be programmed to link to three servers for call processing support. Cisco proposed a variety of other servers to satisfy specific feature or application requirements, including E911 (Cisco Emergency Responder or CER), messaging (Unity), unified communications (Presence, Meeting Place), and ACD (IP Contact Center, IP IVR). Cisco proposed redundant CER, Presence, and IP Contact Center/IVR servers in the two headquarters equipment rooms. Proposed media gateways for non-IP endpoints included the Cisco VG 248 -48 and the Cisco 2821 ISR.
The SRST software option runs on a local Cisco IOS router, eliminating the requirement for dedicated servers, and supports a seamless switchover process, but does not support full feature capabilities in survivable mode. Some features are limited, such as conferencing, and many are not available. It should be noted, however, that Cisco continues to increase SRST feature support with each software release.
Cisco has a strong portfolio of IP telephone instruments, but did not satisfy all of the RFP requirements. Cisco proposed its 7906G for Economy model requirements. The recently introduced 7962G was proposed for the Administrative model, but lacks an integrated Bluetooth interface. The 7962G also requires an optional 7914 expansion module to satisfy 16-programmable line/feature requirements. For the Professional model Cisco proposed the 7965G model equipped with a color display screen, although the attribute was not required; the 7975G was proposed for the Executive model. None of the Cisco models have hard fixed keys, such as a Hold button, nor integrated Bluetooth or USB interfaces as required. The 7975G technically did not satisfy the RFP requirement for 10-programmable line/feature keys (it has eight keys, only). Also, the 7965G proposed as an ACD instrument lacks work code and supervisor alert keys, and does not have an integrated recorder interface. A teleworker instrument with integrated VPN is not currently available, although peripheral Cisco equipment can be used to satisfy secure communications requirements.
Cisco’s proposed solution strongly satisfied RFP security and system management requirements. Additionally, an area Cisco has been traditionally weaker than the established vendors is generic software features, but it has improved its offering over the years. The current proposal supported most of the Station features except for Discrete Call Observing, Group Listening, Ringer Cut-off, Secondary Extension Feature Activation, and Whisper Page. Attendant features, usually the weakest Cisco area, were generally satisfied except for Busy Verification of Trunks/Terminals, Control of Trunk Group Access, Delay Announcement, Intercept Treatment, and Trunk Group Busy/Warning Indicator System.
Several System features were not supported, including Automatic Camp-on, Automatic Circuit Assurance, Delayed Ringing, Direct Inward System Access, Facility Test Calls, Password Aging, Timed Reminder.
For cellular extension requirements, Cisco Unified Mobility is now natively available with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, eliminating the requirement for a dedicated server. Cisco proposed mobile soft clients for all system subscribers as part of its pricing solution. The package supports single business number reach and a single voice mail box; access to key call control features of Cisco Unified Communications Manager; and access to personal call lists. Unified Mobility currently runs on a variety of Blackberry and Nokia handsets.
Cisco strongly satisfied the RFP’s unified communications requirements, including in its proposal: Cisco Unified Personal Communicator; Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator; Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage; Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express; Cisco Unity and Unity Connection; Cisco WebEx; and Cisco Unified Presence. Full Microsoft and IBM integration was supported. The only weakness was limited voice portal (speech) capabilities.
