CCM vs. CME

[mjarrar]

CCM vs. CME

what do you think???

[Aaron Harrison]

Hmm.. I'd say that if you have one of the routers listed at:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/its/cme33/cme33spc.htm

and little money to spend, then go for CME. It doesn't cost a lot over the price of handsets.

If you have the money though, go for CM - it's much more flexible with a lot more features... There are only a few things that CME does better the Call Manager.

In the short term you could go for CME to get the right handsets in and spread your investment by getting CM later.... Convert your CMEs to SRST later on.

Aaron

[Chris Deren]

Also, depending on the size of your environment, if it is or going to be over 100 phones I would recommand CCM. Compare the features and see if CME is sufficient for your needs. Another aspect to look at is do you or will you need Call Center application integrated with your system.

Chris

[mjarrar]

Thank you for your response, im looking for a features comparison between the two, and the limitations of CME.

[jroysdon]

Think Key System vs. PBX. CME does very basic features (hold, transfer, MoH, conferencing, with CUE you have VM, basic AA):

"IP COMMUNICATIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES USING CISCO CALLMANAGER EXPRESS WITH CISCO UNITY EXPRESS"

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns339/ns395/ns359/ns331/netqa09186a008033a46d.html

Google has access to Cisco "Partner Confidential" data that you'll find useful:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:BxpPUvwM0EAJ:www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/partners/partners/c644/ccmigration_09186a0080202e8a.pdf+site:cisco.com+callmanager+feature+comparison+callmanager+express

The original PDF that this is base on (which you may or may not have access to):

http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/partners/partners/c644/ccmigration_09186a0080202e8a.pdf

Actually, if you could find a current version of that doc, it'd help. That doc is pretty of out date, and all the features it says will be supported by CME in the future, already are (MoH from the router's flash, 3+ person conference, etc.).

One simple example I can think of is that CME supports either blind or consult transfer, but not both (it's hard-set in the configuration). CCM defaults to consult and you hit transfer right away a second time for a blind.

Note that CME/CUE aren't both required. You could use CME with full-blown Unity. I highly recommend against doing any sort of analog VM/AA integration. The ActiveVoice Reception is great in theory, but the nasties of analog (glare and physical port limitation) show why you want to go all VoIP.

[peter.rowe]

As an alternative to unity Express, an Italian company has a suite of products for CME that offers voicemail, callcentre, MOH, IP faxing

www.stonevoice.com

I've had pretty good results with it, and although the pricing could be better, it's a lot cheaper than unity.

[gene]

The CME offers paging through the phone speakers which CCM does not.