If you thought the previous post on lies about TDM PBX not capable of modern telephony was good, then to use the ol Ron Popiel cliche But Wait There’s More!
This post will be a little raunchy, I should’ve posted this on my personal site, but I couldn’t help to resist when I got a couple off-site feedback from people defending my first one, so “the hits keep on coming!” I hope.
This same site had another post from some dude that can’t tell ISDN from T1 or that anything that supports TDM telephony because afterall TDM is automatically native to VOIP technology. The practices of torture, lies and manipulation from S&M (now did you get the innuendo?) is just getting complex now. Anyone that wants to push SIP as a be-all-end-all solution is now getting pushed to customers who can’t a) fight back or b) they don’t know anything about telecom/telephony so they’ll take a solution and in many VOIP setups w/out telecom support, they leave the system abandoned and most often the VOIP system plus the S&M types push and torture, will often be unsupported, phones crashing, users wanting assistance to then be denied by the heartless IT administrators… (why am I writing this during the holidays when this should be more of a Halloween themed post?)
So in today’s post, I’m going to quote another blogger of the New York based SIP provider called Onsip where that same Nicole girl was preaching lies and manipulation. This S&M post was written by a Kevin Bartley.
First off the opening image:
In the IT world, they treat PBX systems like servers. They also preach ageism. They really think the M1 is just as old as your 286 workstation that that should also be tossed.
Quoting the blog where he refers to lines as the generic, CIO-esque language of “users”
The Nortel Meridian is purportedly the most widely used PBX, with some estimates pegging the user base at 43 million users. Released in 1975, the Meridian foresaw the power of LAN based communications, which is perhaps why it enjoys continued popularity today.
Boy, isn’t that racist to say “users” over say “lines” or “extensions”? Because not all 43 million lines are actively used by “users”. Not only do I feel like a robot, but I feel so like I’m taking advantage of a hardware – in the negative sense!
Every function of the Meridian – such as advanced voice features, data connectivity, and computer telephony integration (CTI) – are now available on a wide variety of platforms, many times at a lower cost.
What about the three-nine reliability that you tout with your stupid Tip-and-Ring-over-IP “solution”?
So if you’re currently a Meridian user, does it make sense to stick with what you have?
Hell Yeah! (That also includes people who have TDM NEAX boxes, an Avaya G3, a Communication Manager pre 3x or even 4x – whatever!)
The writer starts the next paragraph entitled “What it does Right”
He writes the M1’s “staying power is evidence that it continues to fulfill the needs of contemporary businesses.” What in the heck is “contemporary”? Again the M1 and SL-1 are two different classes of PBX systems (think of the Dimension over System 75 in the ‘Red world.) Just like that Millenial girl, he says “When it was introduced forty years ago, the Meridian streamlined the calling process by introducing features such as waiting queues, group calling, and modifiable software interfaces.”
Again no one uses SL1s anymore! That’s been antiquated for years now!
Not sure if this man has an English accent, but he does uses that very annoying IT speak of the collective “We” (stop using that word because IT doesn’t speak for me!)
Quoting a ‘graph again,
Meridian’s innovations actually structured the way businesses and customers communicate, practices that have carried over into the present. So for a lot of Meridian owners, the decision to remain on an aged PBX comes down to a simple maxim:
If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
See where I am going at, he can’t even use the word “ain’t.” Its not unprofessional when you use that word in cliche sense.
I love the family court comparison to TDM since “it’s cheaper to keep her!”
The next section is pretty progressive language (actually Nortel would’ve used the same if they still existed.) Apparently box and cloud are living and breathing things because in the title it stated “From Box to Cloud.” (IT people are known to SUCK at writing, and I’d love to put this S&M punk to shame!)
Hosted PBX is an industry term for business phone systems that are hosted on the Internet. All the functions of the phone system – including maintenance, support, updates, and features – are handled by the phone company online.
I hate to be nitpicking, but I say it’s truly an IP Centrex. 50 features is about double the Centrex features, but my gawd, I would think calling it “Hosted PBX” is a trademark infringement to the traditional TDM telephony industry!
Meridian is an ‘on-premise’ PBX. The phone system itself is a box of physical hardware stored on site at your business. All phone system issues, technical or otherwise, are handled by your in-house staff.
No we call that “on site” Mister – I hate “on-premise” such a politically correct wording!
S&M types continue to lie by stating that the Meridian [1] “standbys such as ACD queues, extension dialing, and ring groups are found on virtually every hosted PBX platform. But just about every hosted PBX on the market surpasses Meridian in depth of features.” But yet, there is in fact major feature reductions because the M1 has touted over 300 features, the Definity series has over 700 features, and don’t tell me that “no one will notice.” You go from one system to another and trust me if you went from ROLM to Avaya, you had tradeoffs; you went from Nortel to Avaya Red, you had tradeoffs and if you went from Avaya Blue to Avaya Red, you sure has heck had tradeoffs; or even the transition from Octel to Avaya’s “Modular Messaging” where Octel was downgraded to an app.
But remember, Don’t let the facts get away of a good sale™.
The idea of having open systems is the most dangerous idea to exist to man. The reason why these systems were closed was because, they weren’t general purpose devices, these aren’t even computers, and to be quite direct, why should it be? IT has this very flat, British way of, everything should be treated the same way, if you just keep it general. Well this same exact mindset is why Target, Staples and The Home Depot fell victim to breaches because they had “backends” that were not designed to do specific applications in a non generic matter.
Here is why in action:
Sales and support staff who use hosted PBXes benefit from CRM information that comes from integration with leading platforms such as Salesforce and Zendesk. This gives employees up-to-date information on a caller and enhances their ability to close a deal.
Now in boldfaced by me:
Techies who like to get underneath the hood can even program their hosted PBX to provide customized CRM information (such as what web page a caller is viewing).
You stated earlier that “If a feature stops working, it’s not your team’s problem to fix, because the hosted PBX company provides the maintenance along with its service.” – but if you allow coders who don’t know squat about telephony, then what happens if they mess up the system? I assume heads don’t roll in an S&M driven world…
But its not just the features themselves that distinguish hosted PBXes from Meridian systems. The way the features are implemented throughout a hosted PBX solution – the number of users, the different extensions, the voice mailboxes – are all controlled by a single person via a user friendly, web-based admin interface. This means that even the most tech averse pet store owner can maintain complete control over his/her business’s phone system.
I got a solution for that. It’s called the UCX. Use a search engine!
I do agree with this completely. “Meridian systems, by contrast, cannot be updated or manipulated by a user friendly interface. Changes to the system must be hard coded into a terminal prompt that only functions through arcane machine code.”
The SL1 and M1 were a engineers paradise, the TLA just wanted me to drive off the cliff. I disagree with this part though.
This guarantees that some sort of IT personnel will be required to make the minutest of changes to your system. This arrangement not only wastes money and manpower, but it will probably thwart any attempt to make crucial changes in an emergency situation.
I hate to make IT similar to politics. The reason is that IT was a bad process where if it something was taught a specific way you had to do it the specific way. If it was done differently then it would be “arcane” or “old fashioned” or whatever equivalent to “group think.”
On pricing, the writer attacks Cap Ex spending as “systems require its users to pay a significant upfront capital expenditure. All of the physical hardware – from the phones down to the telephony server – must be bought with a business’s hard earned money, never mind the maintenance costs that are waiting down the road.” Supposedly this writer forgot about hard financial work, investments in the company or organization. Oh did I also mention S&M and IT types often kiss up to the C-suite to submit to their “cost cutting” propaganda?
The intendend audience is near the bottom of this post, so misleading people may latch to something that may not be relevant. (Meridans are mostly installed in many places where there is thousands of lines, not hundreds.)
A hosted PBX phone system requires a comparatively minor upfront capital expenditure. The only initial purchase that needs to be made are the IP phones themselves. This is why a hosted PBX solution makes the most sense for small to medium-sized businesses.
Again the IT industry prays upon “planned obsolescence” by stating the M1 as “yesterday’s solution” (in his opinion) and again attacks the M1 by comparing it from “clinging to a VHS tape when the Blu Ray copy is available”
He would diss my opinions as illrelevent, he defends the hack workers who don’t want to be “open” to learn a “closed” system, get his fingers dirty and have to deal with users.
Whether or not these opinions are correct is besides the point. The fact is that hosted PBX solutions can offer real savings for businesses right now. Maintenance costs and lost manpower are big issues for businesses that adopt Meridian phone systems. They may work relatively well, but the unanticipated debts associated with hiring IT professionals, replacing old equipment, and monitoring the status of the hardware bleed your business’s bottom line over time.
At the end of the day, you cannot trust IT, you cannot trust sales and marketing and really the sales and marketing are basically Fifty Shades of Grey in the Crazy World of Information Technology.
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