Enterprise Communicationsciscomicrosoft

Top Considerations in Teams vs. Webex

by Dave Michels

There’s a lot to Microsoft Teams and the Cisco Webex Suite. These solutions are much broader than UC or conferencing.

Both have expanded their services to include:

  • Team Chat
  • UCaaS/Calling
  • Audio and Video Conferencing
  • Carrier services
  • Platform Services

In the UC world it was not uncommon to turn to different providers for UC, conferencing, recording, endpoints, headsets, and carrier services. A single decision for Teams or Webex can address all of these needs.

There’s not a lot of coverage on how these solutions compare against each other. So, I decided to turn to two industry experts to recreate how a customer might approach the Cisco vs. Microsoft question.

In this video, I serve up customer information to Zeus Kerravala and Kevin Kieller  to see how they might guide a customer to the best solution.

It’s a 45 minute video and doesn’t even offer an definitive conclusion (nor should it). 45 minutes may seem long, but we barely scratch the surface of what these products can do, and what customers need to consider.

These products are evolving rapidly. for a current take on Teams, check out this TalkingPointz Research Note. Cisco unveiled Webex Calling last fall, and is expected to unveil more updates this Spring.

Two important disclaimers

  • We set this video up as a Microsoft. vs. Cisco discussion, but I don’t want to suggest that these are the only two viable options. We touch on Slack in the video, and I believe Avaya is the only UC vendor today touting a voice and video native integration with Slack. Teams vs. Webex can be compared to Fords vs. Chevys. Bottom line is there are lots of alternatives to consider. Enterprise collaboration is bursting with innovation and there’s a solution out there that can scratch any itch – more customization, more international, more endpoints, contact center options, and so on.
  • I stated this at the end but should have stated it more clearly upfront: neither Kevin nor Zeus had prior knowledge of what I was going to reveal as customer requirements. In other words, this was all off-the-cuff. I think if I should do this again, it’s probably more logical to let them prepare some thoughts.