Channel Satisfaction Survey 2014: Cisco is the King of unified communication

Cisco managed to regain the faith of maximum of its channel partners in unified communications in 2014 after it was upstaged by Avaya the year before. In fact, Avaya slipped from #1 to #3, while Cisco and Microsoft grabbed the top two spots in the channel mindshare.

Though interoperability, network performance and unified communication security continue to be the cause of concern, the demonstrable ROI and newer implementation options are spurring unified communication adoption. The changing business models, due to travel costs and time constraints are motivating vendors to adopt unified communication solutions that enable live communication sessions.

Unified communication is a highly competitive space, with all the big boys banking high on the solution providers and facing a fierce competition to remain ahead. This is evident from the topsy turvy way the channel allegiance is switching over the years. Apart from a strong showing in all product quality categories, Cisco's consistency and effectiveness of communication with channel partners helped it win back the #1 slot this year.

Like last year, Cisco has again proved that it has leadership in overall product/service reliability to the convenience in installation, adoption and scalability. Cisco has scored high in overall product quality in comparison to its rivals, but while last year it lost its sheen on claim settlement, promptness with turnaround time in providing online support, it seemed to have redressed most of these issues this year.

Nevertheless, partners are still concerned with Cisco's online partner portal and its effectiveness. There seems to be a degree of unhappiness also with Cisco's advertising and its flexibility in conducting localized promotions.

Though partners swear by Cisco's product quality, they also strongly endorse Microsoft on most product quality fronts especially on overall product reliability and price vs performance ratio. They are also enamored by the richness of online resources offered by Microsoft.

Avaya focused on innovation and on addressing the real-time business collaboration and communications needs of multi-national enterprises, small and medium sized businesses and government organizations. Over the quarters, Avaya launched exciting, yet practical solutions in growing markets, including collaborative cloud, video, multichannel contact center applications, and virtual collaboration.