Avaya ACE Versus Lync Native Post Wrap-up–Stats, Tweets and Classic Comments

Last week was a fun week on VoIPNorm. It was the biggest response to any single post I have had on the blog and certainly generated some interesting comments. 65 comments to be exact, over 70 tweets and over 4000 page views for the week. I had to close down the comments this week partly because the time it was consuming was considerable and the conversation was becoming circular and not really moving forward.

So to all those that took part and commented I thank you.

Stats for the week (see week 46):

Classic Tweets:

Classic comments:

“you are afterall a MSFT-paid shill” - By Anon (Proof I publish all non-spam comments no matter how insulting)

“The "preserve a legacy deployment" comment about ACE isn't quite fair” – By Anon

“ACE is less about choice and more about preservation” –By VoIPNorm

“All integration options with Lync have pros and cons” – By Anon

“Issue is Avaya is not a software company and it never will be” – By Anon

“Avaya customers should ask themselves is how viable the company is” – By Anon

“What happens to call control if ACE is un-available but Lync is? Isn't that confusing to my end-users? Um, how about you pick up the phone and dial a number. It's what most every user does today.” – By Anon

“I came into Avaya noticing how reactive the organization was because their new set of services had not yet been released and Microsoft Lync was taking off like wildfire within each of their accounts, especially the large ones.” – By Joe Schurman

“what we should be focused on is providing consultation as a trusted advisor and advising the customer as to the appropriate vendor in a fit for purpose environment that will most definitely be multi-vendor, but suited with a best of breed approach and architecture that benefits the customer” – By Joe Schurman

“In my opinion there is currently no vendor in the marketplace today that can compete with Microsoft Lync on the desktop or Mac “ – By Joe Schurman

“It’s really a great solution because it does not interfere with the Lync end-user experience, provides the organization with protection on the investments they’ve already made in Avaya CM, SM, etc., and more importantly will allow users a choice of desktop and mobile solutions with Lync and One-X until Flare is available in mid-2012 to add to the mix” – By Joe Schurman

“At the core of this argument is this - that there is more value in Avaya voice than the voice capabilities in Lync, therefore a customer should buy and use ACE to hijack the voice portion " – By Anon

“I'm not sure why people are getting confused with what ACE actually is. It's not middleware” – By Joe Schurman

“the Lync platform is definitely innovative and provides a unique and innovative end-user experience” – By Joe Schurman

“ACE was always a good concept however it does not necessarily best address a specific customer's requirements.” – By Kevin Kieller

“Kevin Kennedy (Avaya President) & Scott Brown (Microsoft Voice VP) are leading wonderful companies, with wonderful solutions that can work very nicely, TOGETHER. Respectfully.” – By Bob Bluemer

“A solution is "good" because it meets the defined customer requirements. A solution is "better" if it meets more specific customer requirements.” - By Kevin Kieller

“The fact is ACE intention is to stall Lync Enterprise Voice deployments and better positions Flare later in 2012 ” – By VoIPNorm

“I'm elated to hear you reference Avaya's new open minded approach to Microsoft, as I have customers that have asked for Lync with and without ACE, also with direct SIP integration utilzing Exchange UM. To date I have not been able to service these customers without the threats and fear that Avaya is going to pull my "loyalty" bonus” – By Anon

“A great bottle of white wine mixed with a wonderful bottle of red does not often yield even a drinkable rose.” – By Kevin Kieller

“If Avaya is so customer focused on making multi vendor environments work, then why are they not part of the UCIF?” – By Anon

“Kudos to you if you now understand why some people are upset and feel betrayed with your FUD spreading, but to dismiss it on one hand and continue to do it in the other...seriously, how is anyone ever supposed to believe anything you say?” – By  Thomas Kisner about Joe Schurman

“The telecom business is full of old foxes that want to protect themself rather than looking at the customers real needs and taking todays date and year into that account. “ – By Tommy Clarke

“I just can't see how architecturally, any middleware (ACE/Aura) can possibly keep up and expose the features of the rapidly evolving connected endpoints” – By Kevin Kieller

“If I were to stand the native Lync experience next to the ACE experience there is no comparison. ACE is rudimentary integration at best.” – By VoIPNorm

“Capabilities from both Microsoft and Avaya will certainly change over time. We should agree to meet back "here" six or twelve months from now and refresh the debate/discussion.” – By Kevin Kieller

“@joeschurman Wishing you a speedy recovery.” – By Matt Landis

And as Kevin suggested we will back in in six months time to check in.

Thanks again to everyone who commented.

VoIPNorm