3rd Party Meridian Admin Software

[TomMonger]

Hello,

I saw a post that mentioned Phonemaster administration software for Meridian systems. I downloaded a demo and it looks pretty good.

Does anyone recommend this software? Are there other recommended packages available? What do these typically cost and how do they compare to Optivity or MAT?

We have an Option 11C and Symposium. Our company got a quote for Optivity and the price was astonomical -- $20,000 I believe!

Thanks,
-Tom in Scranton, PA

 

[kirchenlo]

Tom,

the only thing you need is only the Optivity Telephony Manager Modul and this is normally around 1000€ to 1500€. Phonemaster looks nice but it is not very user friendly.

OTM is a nice software for some day to day chnages.

Kirchenlo

 

[OBone]

OTM is a good package but lack of product knowledge even when configuring quotes for users makes the package appear overly expensive.

Additionally the service pricing is very high when you go through traditional channels.
If you have MAT, Nortel has made it fairly inexpensive to get to OTM (product price).

I have seen many instances of vendors quoting OTM with items that are not necessary, overpriced, or simply incorrect.

 

[TomMonger]

Thanks for the advice, guys.

OBone,

I think that ridiculous quote I was given for OTM was because we also have Symposium. It may have also included the ability to manage 2 switches (we have an identical system at one of our plants in Indian, and we are tied in via T1). I'm not actually sure what we were quoted on because I wasn't involved at that time.

Oh, we do not have MAT, either.

-Tom in Scranton, PA

 

[davebopp]

Phonemaster is very, very simple to use. Its all drag and drop. We dropped MAT some time back and now use only Phonemaster. MAT and now OPTIVITY are cumbersome, expensive, and problematic. Phonemaster installs in a few minutes and just runs. We use the network version - setting up additional workstations takes about 2 minutes! Phonemaster is not OS dependant either - we've run on Novel and now on a W2K server with XP workstations.

I'm amazed that one reply suggested it was a little difficult to use. Its all GUI and very simple.

The on-line documentation is also far superior to anything Nortel offers. We use the Phonemaster help files rather than searching through the Nortel docs.

If Nortel had any brains they would purchase the rights to this software and market it - its far, far better than anything Nortel has to offer.

Be happy to discuss and/or demo this with anyone.

Dave Bopp
dbopp@monmouth.edu

 

[dnc16]

Why not just use the command line prompts, it's free and is included with the switch.

 

[mjjack]

I am currently working with BT for a solution to our Nortel admin systems. OTM for my 4 sites which comprise of 4000+ phone /fax sets came to a quote of around £7500, the same information was presented to Phone master and the cost came out at £3500.

Phone master were very proffesional, the software looks easy to use, and the other meridian bolt ons they do are also very good.

BT's cost forgot to mention that the system would need to be powred down for the OTM to work on an IP basis, which has business implications, and would cost £197+vat+support charges per site, Phonemaster will connect to the meridian in numerous ways, giving no worry about a back way in to the system.