Deploying Lync Voice with Office 365

A TCO study including AudioCodes One Box 365

Executive Summary

Many organizations that subscribe to Office 365 want Lync Enterprise Voice functionality, in addition to user-to-user voice and video, in order to enable calling to and from the Public Switched Telephone network (PSTN and cellular phones) and to enable PBX-like telephony features. To date, these organizations have had little or no data to determine the most economical way to enable Lync Enterprise Voice functionality. The authors of this TCO report have been analyzing and reporting on the total cost of ownership for adding Lync Voice capability to Office 365 for over a year and have now expanded that analysis to include the AudioCodes One Box 365 option.

Herein is a summary of the analysis of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the recently expanded AudioCodes One Box 365 solution (50 users to 5,000 users) compared to other options for providing Microsoft Lync "enterprise voice" functionality either in combination with Office 365 or as a complete Microsoft Lync system on-premises deployment without Office 365.

The key takeaway from this independent, unbiased analysis performed by KelCor and UniComm Consulting is that, based on the available data and assumptions regarding costs and configurations, ^[1] the AudioCodes One Box 365 system used in conjunction with an existing subscription to the Office 365 E3 plan will be the most cost effective way to deploy Lync Enterprise Voice for organizations supporting between 50 and 5,000 users.

TCO Modeling Methodology

This analysis is based on a TCO modeling tool built in Excel that analyzes the total cost of ownership (TCO) for Microsoft Lync as a Unified Communications and Enterprise Voice solution, including costs of acquisition and installation plus the five-year costs of maintenance and of system operation including facilities, labor, and transmission costs. This TCO tool has been built independently of AudioCodes^[2]. The following scenarios were examined:

1. Microsoft Lync with Enterprise Voice deployed entirely on-premises.
2. Microsoft Lync deployed in conjunction with Office 365 licenses with the Enterprise Voice portion deployed as a typical on-premises Lync system. The organization pays the $2/user/month fee to upgrade from the O365 E3 plan to the E4 plan. Lync servers for Enterprise Voice are installed on-premises by a Microsoft Partner.
3. Microsoft Lync deployed in conjunction with Office 365 and a service provider that integrates with Office 365 providing Enterprise Voice services. In this scenario, an enterprise has contracted with Microsoft for O365 services and contracts with a hosted UC service provider for integrating hosted Lync Enterprise Voice with Office 365.
4. Microsoft Lync deployed in conjunction with Office 365 and AudioCodes One Box 365 being deployed on-premises to deliver Enterprise Voice. This scenario is logically the same as #2 above, with the difference being that AudioCodes One Box 365 is deployed on-premises in lieu of a typical Microsoft Partner system integration of a diverse set of equipment and devices.

We have performed the analysis for a variety of use cases and sizes representing the following numbers of users: 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000. The model was built using rigorous pricing algorithms based on data obtained from Microsoft, HP, AudioCodes, service providers, and independent channel partners.

Comparative Results

Figure 1 and Table 1 graphically and numerically illustrate the results of our comparison.

Figure 1. One Box 365 as compared to other Lync Enterprise Voice deployment options.

Table 1. Numerical results of TCO computation comparing One Box 365 to other Lync Enterprise Voice deployment options.

A review of the data shown in table 1 indicates that beginning at deployment sizes of 50 users, One Box 365 has an advantage over other deployment options for all sizes. Our analysis is that One Box 365 is competitive for organizations of 50 or more users.

One Box 365 capacities are currently limited to 5000 users, and at this upper end of the capacity range, One Box continues to provide a lower total cost of ownership for deploying Lync Enterprise Voice than competing options. Table 2 shows the magnitude of the TCO savings One Box 365 would have as compared to other options.

Table 2. One Box savings (savings shown as negative numbers) as compared to competing Lync Voice options.

Figure 2 shows the One Box 365 monthly cost per user over the TCO period as opposed to competing options.

Figure 2. A comparison of per user per month costs for various Lync Enterprise Voice deployments. AudioCodes One Box 365 is lower at every user level.

Conclusions

The key takeaway from this independent, unbiased analysis is that, based on the available data and assumptions regarding costs and configurations,^[3] the AudioCodes One Box 365 system used in conjunction with an existing subscription to the Office 365 E3 plan will be the most cost effective way to deploy Lync Enterprise Voice for organizations supporting between 50 and 5,000 users.

^[1] This analysis assumes (1) on-premises Lync system licensed under the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Subscription program, (2) undiscounted commercial enterprise pricing for Office 365 (i.e. Office 365 Educational pricing was not analyzed); (3) typical commercial discounts from list prices for servers, gateways, and devices.

^[3] This analysis assumes (1) on-premises Lync system licensed under the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Subscription program, (2) undiscounted commercial enterprise pricing for Office 365 (i.e. Office 365 Educational pricing was not analyzed; (3) typical commercial discounts from list prices for servers, gateways, and devices.

This paper is sponsored by AudioCodes.

Also on UCStrategies.com on this topic:

• AudioCodes Expands One Box 365 Lync Appliance Family