Nortel vs. Cisco: The battle heats up

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This week the battle heated up even more at VoiceCon Orlando 2008, where Nortel presented their solutions as providing up to seven times the resiliency and about 20 times the performance at up to 50 percent of the total cost of ownership than competing Cisco products, according to independent test reports. The test reports from The Tolly Group and InfoTech, commissioned by Nortel, tested a head-to-head comparison with Cisco's similar local area network and data center products for unified communications. Nortel’s end-to-end data networking portfolio is a key component of the company’s Unified Communications strategy, providing the resilient, high-performance infrastructure required for real-time applications, while at the same time improving business productivity. Nortel also announced enhancements to its mobile unified communications portfolio: Nortel Infuses Mobile Phones With Powerful Unified Communications Capabilities Many existing data networks are limited in their ability to support unified communications solutions. Sub-optimal network reliability and performance in addition to a high cost of ownership compromises the productivity gains and cost savings from unified communications. Unified communications enable simple, one-click access to phone features such as IM and videoconferencing from the desktop.

"We chose a Nortel data network solution over other vendors because it delivered superior resiliency, performance and a lower total cost of ownership," said Allan Morris - Executive Director of Information Technology Services at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. "Nortel also understands our business and where we want to take the University in regards to the use of technology in aiding and supporting, teaching, learning and research." RMIT recently signed a contract with Nortel for the roll-out of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony system to replace its 20-year-old PABX model.

"Network IT buyers increasingly are looking for data networking solutions that don’t restrict them to single-source vendors through proprietary equipment that offers mediocre performance," said Kevin Tolly - President/CEO/Founder of The Tolly Group. "Our independent testing shows that Nortel solutions offered superior performance and reliability with a lower cost than other market rivals tested." "Nortel delivers compelling solutions for users deploying data networks for unified communications." View more Nortel vs. Cisco Competitive Lab Test Results.

"This independent testing confirms what thousands of customers already know – that Nortel data solutions are purpose-built for unified communications," said Joel Hackney - President of Nortel Enterprise Solutions. "Our mission is to simplify how people communicate." "Our data network solutions were tested head-to-head against our competitors and came out on top by a large margin." "These tests underscore that Nortel’s technology delivers communications simplicity while also being the best performing, most reliable and most energy efficient."

As part of Nortel’s commitment to lower energy consumption, the company has introduced the Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator. With an energy consumption modeling capability, the calculator helps IT professionals achieve energy reductions of up to 50 percent. This helps network planners analyze the impact of current or planned network infrastructure deployments to support unified communications.

"With the growth of IP telephony, Unified Communications, and network virtualization, companies need to be able to analyze consumption trends," said Cindy Borovick - IDC Research Vice President for Datacenter Networks. "Nortel's Energy Efficiency Calculator is a proactive tool to understand energy efficiency."

"Sierra Atlantic is expanding in India and we were looking to deploy a state of the art data network which would cater to our present needs as well as provide us the backbone for our future applications," said Ram Kumar - Director of IT for Sierra Atlantic. "We chose a Nortel data network solution after a stringent competitive technical evaluation, which went on for four months." "The Nortel solution proved to be the most resilient, delivered superior performance, and was the most energy efficient." "The support competency and commitments were far above any competition."

Do YOU think Nortel is capable of competing head-to-head with Cisco?

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