Aftermarket Partner R7 & R8 Processors.

[Dexman]

Has anyone noticed that the secondary market for Partner ACS R7 & R8 processors has gone crazy?

Dealers are either out of refurbished stock or charging very high prices for the processors that they do have. The few R7s & R8s that are listed on eBay are being bid up.

Oddly enough, the prices of R6 processors seem to holding steady. I suppose if there is a run on R6 processors, the prices will go up as well.

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[52rich]

Dexman...I agree..It's getting crazy..I was quoted a price of
$ 990.00 for a refurbed ACS 8.0 last week..
I paid $ 475.00 for one right after they stopped production.
I say bring it back into production, but they never will.
It's the best system for the small business market and they killed it.

 

[jinxs]

From what I have been told, AVAYA is buying up the ACS units and destroying them. I have no concrete proof on this, just what I have heard from a couple of secondary market suppliers. I guess at this point to laws of supply and demand hold fast. The lower the supply and the higher the demand, the higher the price. It's a shame that the IP Office Partner can't go past 18 Partner phones.

 

[exsmogger]

I'm also being offered about 33% more for R6's than I was earlier in the year.

Brian Cox
Oregon Phone

http://www.OregonPhone.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/briancox1952

 

[Dexman]

I Emailed my contact @ Metroline and he said that they are completely out of R7s & R8s. 012s are becoming scarce too.

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[SYQUEST]

Didn't one of Avaya's predecessors try that tactic 15 or so years ago? From what I remember the secondary market vendors got all over them and would not sell to them or something like that...

....JIM....

 

[Billx1]

It is time to move forward and start learning the IP Office Partner Edition like your competition has.

The KSU and cards are a lot less expensive then a used R8 ACS.

Voice Mail is built in and you can re-use your 18D and 34D phones.

 

[mforrence]

@Billx1 - you can re-use up to 18 of your 18D & 34D phones. If you have a larger Partner system, you're out of luck!
Mike

 

[Westi]

I still think it is a shame to castrate the IP Office down to a Partner version and so far I have avoided it and installed the IPO as an IPO.
Now I jinxed it probably and get beat up next week and have to install a Partner Edition

Joe W.

FHandw, ACSS

 

[52rich]

In reply to Billx1's statement that we should just go with the IP office, it's just that the Partner system is a great system for about 90% of my customers..They do not want, or need many of the things that the IP office has, but they do want to use the telephone sets they have in place...Many were purchased just 2 or 3 years ago.
I think that they should have given the transition from Partner systems to IP Office a few more years in production....Make them both available and see where the market takes things. But what do I know..I'm not a marketing genius.

 

[SYQUEST]

Why should one pay more for stuff they don't want or need, and can't have the capacity they do need with the sets they already have? AVAYA IS STUPID! THEY SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE BRITISH HARDWARE IN ENGLAND! In the USA WE USE ACCESS CODES AND FEATURE CODES!! There is nothing "short" about a short code!!!

....JIM....

 

[jinxs]

Westi,

I have found that if we sell an IP Office to a business with less than 10 phones and it will not be part of a SCN, then it is better to go with Partner Mode. It just seems to be a better fit. Most Small Business's with 3 lines and 6 phones don't want to have to dial 9 and don't care about the rich features. All they want to do is pick up a phone and dial out, and check the occasional voicemail. Granted if they have over 10 phones, then Standard mode it is.

Billx1,

What if the existing customer has an issue with their 5X9 processor? Agreed, any new sales should be IP Office, but I don't want to tell a long time customer that he has to purchase all new equipment and phones...minus the 18 he/she is allowed to keep...because something went funky with the ICs in the processor. More so if the existing customer is under a maintenance agreement covering the said equipment. It truly is a shame that AVAYA didn't migrate all the Partner phones into the IP Office. It would be easier for the customer to swallow if I tell them they had to purchase only back end equipment. They could keep all their existing phones.

 

[SYQUEST]

If it is on an Avaya maintenance agreement, they will still replace the ACS with an ACS. The secondary market has lots of Partner ACS stuff... So what's not to sell?

....JIM....

 

[Billx1]

jinx

There can be a multitude of circumstances that arise for you and your customers.
There is no "One Answer" to the many possibilities.
Being in business is what has taught you how to respond correctly to each varied situation and how to make the best of it.

Remember, Avaya is first and foremost a marketing company. With their name being their number 1 product. What makes sense to you, me, our customers and a lot of other technical people just doesn't always fit into another company's marketing plan.

When they were phasing out Merlin and bringing in Spirit the two systems were completely incompatible. All you could re-use was the wiring.

Then the Spirit is replaced by the Partner series and again they are completely incompatible.

So now the IP Office Partner replaces the ACS Partner and you get to re-use your phones. Ok maybe not all of them but at least some of them. This looks like an improvement to me.

"I still think it is a shame to castrate the IP Office down to a Partner version and so far I have avoided it and installed the IPO as an IPO."
I hear this quite often and it has a certain degree of merit. Customers with say 10 phones or less don't want a complicated PBX with Park and Pickup buttons instead of CO Line appearances. That's too complicated and it does not work like our "Old System". So there really is a market for simple, easy to operate Key Systems with high level features. People here in the US have had multi line telephones since the late 1940's. They are trained and conditioned to respond to lights and a Hold button.



"They do not want, or need many of the things that the IP office has, but they do want to use the telephone sets they have in place...Many were purchased just 2 or 3 years ago."
That is just my point here. There are at least two Versions of the IP Office. The Partner Version (aka IP Quick Mode) and its big brother PBX Version. The IPO Partner is very similar to the ACS and does give you some extra features that you don't have to use if you don't want to. Plus you can re-use some of your 18d's.

I would encourage anyone that has been selling, installing or servicing the ACS to get on board with IPO Partner. Because when your "old time" customer has a complete system failure and you are on the phone looking for a 5 year old used processor module, there is a good chance that someone else will be in there with IPO Partner. If you don't think this happens then you have not been in business for any length of time. (Look out for the IT Man, he is your new competition with an "in" to your common customer)
Why don't you be the person with a newer better replacement system? If you don't know the product then how can you sell, install, program or service it?

Its not that hard to learn. Many techs think it is really complicated because it says "IP" in the name.
The really funny thing is that the IP Office system isn't even IP. It would be more accurate to call it "Its almost an IP Office". OK the IPO Partner has 3 free SIP Trunk Channel and Mobile Twinning licenses so it may qualify based on that but it doesn't have any IP Phone ability. The IPO PBX is 0% IP out of the box and isn't much more then a 1990's digital KSU.

So try it, you'll like it.......

 

[Dexman]

I've been told that 012E modules are becoming hard to find.

At some point, R7 & R8 processors will return to the secondary market, and prices should begin to level off. I don't know how much truth there is to the rumor that Avaya is buying up 5x9 processors.

Given the buggy nature of the R7, I suspect some vendors will flash most....if not all....of their 5x9 processors up to R8.

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