Now that Nortel's gone

[johnathcc]

Now that the MICS and CICS are going away -- and I wouldn't bet on the BCM line being sold much longer either -- what are people finding to meet customers' needs?

 

[Sam173]

bcm 50 or 450

 

[Sam173]

oh, we are also moving to Cisco

 

[stsguy]

were moving to NEC

WORK SMART NOT HARD

 

[Sam173]

did the NEC in the past, good little product, tech support was not always on the ball but product was stable.

 

[stsguy]

nec is the only telcom that is stable and been in the biz for a long time

WORK SMART NOT HARD

 

[telcodog]

Avaya IP Office Release 7.0 was just released and it supports Nortel digital sets now but the 50 and 450 will still be around for a while yet.

 

[tball1]

For how long?

 

[tball1]

how about allworx?

 

[telcodog]

Well, they already announced a while back that support on the 50 and 450 will continue to at least 2017. Beyond that, I suspect it will depend on how successful they are with the IPO replacing them and how accepting the community will be of the product going away.

There's one heck of a Nortel community out there and they have a big voice.......and we all hope they use it.

As for any more development on them beyond release 6.0, I wouldn't bet on it just yet.

 

[OBrienComms]

We are going to go open source as trixbox now supports unistim straight out the box and gateways are available for for didgital sets, shame really the nortel went bust as 100% better than the cr*p produced by avaya. For those who sing the avaya IP office company song, take a look at the splicecom Maximiser designed by the people who brought you the original incarnation of the ip office the network alchemy, now that how to build a switch.

 

[johnathcc]

One opinion I got from a consultant (from the computer network world) is that for most organizations, especially small ones, hosted VOIP is the way to go. No box in the closet (just an edge router), whatever IP phones you like on the desks, extreme reliability (your provider is big and dual- or multi-homed), and you can do all the moves/adds/changes yourself without any tools or skills.

Where that wouldn't fit, the alternative he liked was Avaya (no opinion on that myself!).

He liked Asterix for his own shop but wouldn't risk installing it on a customer site--too much chance of a late-night panic phone call.

 

[Sam173]

I think Asterix is safe, but to solve all this we are moving to a Cisco Solution all in one architect , phones and switches.

If you do the math on a hosted phone you are on a perpetual life time payment, you can pay for your Cisco box in 3 years and not have to pay for more years to come

 

[johnathcc]

@sam173: true, but not every organization wants to host and run their own box. Some stuff you do in-house, other stuff you outsource. Depends on your resources. YMMV.

 

[ECartman]

@Sam173

We are Nortel/Avaya/Siemens. We don't really push Siemens anymore, so were toying with the idea of Cisco as an alternative to Avaya.

What's your opinion of Cisco's offering ?

 

[SS67]

I am a Die Hard BCM fan and the transition to IP office has been hard. We still sell lots of BCM and there are rumblings about a possible 7.0 version. My fingers are crossed because we have a huge Norstar/BCM base.

Anyone heard of ShoreTel? Very easy to install, very user friendly, great tech support, very reliable, Administration is far easier than Cisco for the customer, less expensive, the company is very stable and has won several awards beating out Cisco, Avaya, Nortel. The only thing the competition can say is they are a small company compared to the others.

We are a Nortel/Avaya, ShoreTel, Cisco distributor so I can give an honest informed opinion. But thats just my opinion for what it is worth.

NCSS, NCDS, for CS1000 and BCM

 

[larry312]

Frontier (FTR) is pushing MITEL.

 

[Firebird Scrambler]

My company in the UK is now selling and installing for Shoretel. One of my colleagues is doing the installation / mntce courses this week. From what I hear both from him and one customer who has one last year is that it's a good and simple product to work with. It's initially designed for the SME market. but is purely VOIP.

Question with reference to the Office IP, Will it support all types of Nortel digital phones, even the CS1000 M2616, M3820, M3904 etc?.



All the best

Firebird Scrambler
Meridian 1 / Succession and BCM / Norstar Programmer in the UK

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbromley

If it's working, then leave it alone!.

 

[biv343]

IP Office R7 only supports Norstar/BCM series digital sets, not Meridian/CS1000 sets.

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

Don't forget the BCM versions of the 11xx and 12xx IP sets will work on the IP Office7.

I know many former Nortel now Avaya BCM experts miss the system quite a bit. I would sure love to get my hands on an IP office 7 test in my lab, but again this is all a hobby for me, so the cost isn't justified. I actually like the way 2 1140E sets I have running on SIP operate better than the way the 1140E operates on the Unistim BCM.

Now that Nortel is gone, My Alma Big Ten University in Indiana is still sticking with their CS2100 and continually upgrading, although they are having quite a few problems with Call Pilot. It was originally installed in 1997 as a SL-100, but is more up to date than ever now as a CS2100 Softswitch.

I miss Nortel Blue though....I hate seeing people recommend Shoretel and Mitel...their actual telephone sets lack the design, engineering and ruggedness of the former Nortel sets....it's almost that they all copied the Nortel sets during their design process. They may operate as great systems, but their installed base is small, their features aren't as easy and universal to use, that's why most people who have abandoned Nortel/Avaya all together have upgraded to Cisco. Cisco will let you set up feature keys and DN numbers almost identical to the BCM or CS1000/CS2100.

Anyways who are we kidding here? Unistim is dead, SCCP will probably follow. Soon everything will be SIP and all IP phones will operate identically, as the Avaya 9630, Cisco 7970 and Nortel 11xx sets I have running on SIP currently do in my lab. The only difference is the body of the phone, but since they are SIP, but the basically SIP functions operate identically on each different set.