Cisco Unity Express, Unity Connection and Unity Compared

Here is a quick comparison of the three voicemail systems available to CallManger Express from Cisco. Cisco Unity Express, Cisco Unity Connection and Cisco Unity. This comparison is from a feature, not cost point of view.

Cisco Unity Express

Unity Express supports up to 250 users, offers integrated email access, and does not offer redundancy. Unity Express starting in version 3.0 does offer IVR as an optional licensed feature. Unity Express runs off of a Cisco router and come in three form factors. AIM card, Network Module, and Enhanced Capacity Network Module. Voicemail can be backed up, but it is not a redundant system.

Cisco Unity Connection

Unity Connection is a server based voicemail system that supports up to 3000 users. It offers Integrated email access and speach recognition. It is linux based.

Cisco Unity Unified Messaging

Cisco Unity Unified Messaging offers up to 7500 subscribrs per server and can be networked to up to 250,000 users. It runs on a Windows server, can be made redundant and offers speach Recognition and Unified (not integrated) email integration.

The difference between Integrated Messaging and Unified messaging.

Integrated voicemail access typically requires you to set up a separate IMAP mailbox for voicemail in your email client. Unified messaging actually uses your Exchange, Lotus Notes or Groupwise message store to store your voicemails.