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Cisco Unified Communications vs Skype for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Unified Communications
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications (1st), IP Telephony & Unified Communications (1st)
Skype for Business
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Unified Communications and Skype for Business aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Unified Communications is designed for Unified Communications and holds a mindshare of 15.0%, up 14.1% compared to last year.
Skype for Business, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Meetings, holds 9.0% mindshare, up 8.8% since last year.
Unified Communications
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

Kani Kumar J - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable customer communication and good third-party integrations with minor server update issues
Cisco supports third-party gadgets, including workforce management systems. These can be directly integrated with Cisco, a feature not widely supported by other contact centers. Additionally, redundancy is set up, meaning if one side of the server goes down, the other side will take over to prevent the contact center from completely failing.
Magdalena Teodorczuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great audio and video quality for virtual meetings
I like the instant messaging feature in the product since I prefer to use the chat functionalities provided by the solution. It is easy to integrate the product with some of the other solutions in the market. I rate the integration capabilities of the product a ten out of ten. The product's user interface is user-friendly. I use the product at a personal level, so I can't speak about the support it provides for the maintenance part. I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We use Extension Mobility and Jabber a lot with mobile remote access. In addition to video calls with Jabber, this greatly enriched communications between coworkers."
"Cisco supports third-party gadgets, including workforce management systems."
"The Click to dial feature was one of the most important features for the customer."
"Skype for Business is good for meetings and instant messaging."
"We chose Skype for Business after other colleagues suggested that we give it a try. It has served us well."
"The solution is stable and scalable."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"The most valuable features of Skype for Business include its persistent chat, Edge Server, Reverse Proxy, front-end server, back-end server, and business calling capabilities, among others."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"You can do meetings of up to two hundred people in a single conversation."
"A good option for virtual meetings."
 

Cons

"An improvement option could be to incorporate the Voicea solution with Communication Manager, allowing it to make a translation between different languages automatically in a conversation."
"Sometimes, minor temporary issues can arise while updating the servers."
"Some features take a lot of steps to configure, so having areas where a few clicks can configure a feature for a user would be nice."
"Sometimes the connection crashes, which is understandable if you are traveling. But, it would be nice if this could be stabilized somehow."
"The solution requires deployment on a Microsoft server and its performance is heavy because it consumes too many resources from the RAM."
"If one of the users has a poor internet connection, this failure will compromise the meeting, causing delays and distortions in the communications."
"Skype for Business is good for the PCs with higher bandwidth, but an improvement is required for low bandwidth usage."
"It would be ideal if the solution could make instant messages more permanent. Currently, if you close the conversation, you lose the instant messages that you shared during the meeting. If those could last beyond the meeting, that would be a great addition, due to the fact that frequently, people give each other key details, important information, or email addresses, etc., during the meeting. If you don't write it down during the meeting, after the meeting closes, it's gone forever. That can be quite frustrating."
"We have had trouble with scalability when trying to host large meetings."
"The video conferencing quality can be improved."
"Skype for Business could improve by having a document channel or repository. Microsoft Teams has a better repository place for documents that you can share with your team. You can access it anywhere from any device."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We had a license for every one of our users to use Skype for Business. The license we used was part of an overall Microsoft license package."
"A license is required to use the solution."
"The pricing is really good. It is quite affordable because it came with our Office 365. It is on a per-user license, which is nice. I quite like that they have made it very granular with all of their licensing."
"Our company pays for a license for us to use the solution."
"It may be considered costly for certain markets, such as in India."
"We purchased an open license."
"I use the product's open-source version."
"Skype for Business' pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
92%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Computer Software Company
1%
Government
1%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Unified Communications?
Sometimes, minor temporary issues can arise while updating the servers. These updates can cause bugs that lead to temporary issues. Although they do not have a major impact, these issues still need...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Unified Communications?
It is basically a contact center solution. In contact centers, it acts as a bridge connecting the customer and the product company and the end customer. For example, if we are running a bank, the c...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Unified Communications?
The pricing varies based on the setup. ECCX has lower pricing for up to 400 users, whereas PCC is more expensive. Pricing increases based on requirements and features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skype for Business?
Skype for Business is affordable and has decent pricing. The video quality is a bit lower than Teams or Zoom, but it remains a good solution overall.
What needs improvement with Skype for Business?
The video quality could be improved, possibly due to internet connection issues. However, there is no significant weakness in Skype for Business.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Skype for Business Plan 1, Skype for Business Plan 2, Lync Server
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Afni, Allied Irish Banks, Bellevue, Came Group, Children's Hospital Colorado, Erickson Living, IDEALondon, Instituto Zaldivar, John Lewis, Linz AG, London Hydro, Lone Star College System, Lone Star College System, Mondi Group, North West Redwater, Park Nicollet, Pentana Solutions Australia, Pilatus, Pirelli, Portugal Ministry, Presidio Inc., Republic Bank & Trust Company, Saipem, SickKids Foundation, Top Right Group, Vital Images
EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, 3CX, Kamailio and others in Unified Communications. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.