Oral Roberts University

With on-campus housing, restaurants, enrollment transactions and a bookstore, the need to communicate among different parties and entities is extremely critical. Complicating matters further, ORU’s IT team is also responsible for the telephony needs of the university’s three CityPlex Towers, which comprise 60-, 30- and 20-story buildings housing mostly businesses. Both the campus and real estate tenants were relying on an older, non-IP phone system.

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The team evaluated Cisco, Avaya, Toshiba and Mitel IP phones, and it became clear that the Mitel phone was much more intuitive to end users. “It all comes down to simplicity, " said CIO Michael Mathews. "Mitel is not a superior product just because I think so. It’s a fact. I’ve used a Cisco phone at other workplaces, and it’s an overly complicated phone system. Mitel has complex functionality, but by default it’s a simplistic system that allows people to easily communicate with each other.”

Users are particularly impressed with the ability to make and receive calls from their PCs, as well as on the phone itself, the address book, easy lookup and the voicemail functionality. Mitel phones also enhance customer service. Besides faculty, students and staff, ORU frequently has visitors on campus who check in at the concierge desk and have Mitel phones available to contact their host or get directions.