response to rant.
budbyrd said:
The entire IT support staff understands, administrates, and uses Windows products every day. These are the people we need to keep happy.
These are the people we need to keep away from the telephone system if the customer wants reliable operation*
VM Pro is a telephone product, and should not be administered by the customers IT dept. it should be treated like an appliance the same way that the IP500 is. unfortunately when running on windows the IT team see it as a PC & falling under their jurisdiction, often insisting on policies that are incompatible with the reliable operation of the product (& that is before Microsoft Automated updates get involved & break things).
Application server looks different enough for most IT depts to accept this as a "Black Box" appliance. almost all** Apps server administration can be completed from the VM Pro client & the web interface so linux knowledge is not essential.
*large organisations may have the time & budget to have there IT team properly trained on the administration of the PBX & associated equipment, most do not. That is why they employ a maintainer.
**there are some tasks that are easier to perform from the Linux command line but these are usually "One Off" tasks. when they are necessary using a command line over a remote connection is IMO far smother than trying to run a remote desktop, even on a reasonably high bandwidth connection, on a low bandwidth connection (most of our systems still have ISDN dial-up connections) a remote desktop is a nightmare.
Do things on the cheap & it will cost you dear