Avaya IP Office Software Upgrade Policy changes effective 15 September 16

[DrDrayAvaya]

you would think that being the best of a bad bunch would offer a glimmer of hope of being able to squash all the competitors into the dirt...
all the japanese systems are extremely solid, but so freakin boring! NEC / Panasonic etc...
they're ultra conservative, but expectations are safely held at low levels. there aren't as many bells to ring.
maybe the alternate or use similar policy to releases of linux, so nightly builds and stable releases offered for distribution. Custom ROMs!! haha!! can you imagine the heartache... "custom ROM's will void warranty..."
BUT... if all we want is a nice solid stable release for a client that doesn't want bells or whistles. just a solid boring TDM PBX for example.
Surely a really bland image/bin can be applied.
I just put a custom dumbed down, resource friendly ROM onto my old samsung galaxy 1, and it's now a whole new machine.
Why not have a similar supported/ unsupported model? take buggy unused components out of the mix on sites that will never use it?
Especially useful for sites you just need to be boring old NEC stable, that are 6 hours drive away in the middle of nowhere...
remote access is extremely important. The first thing I setup on any system we install, Manager, Monitor and SSI. and using something like keepass to change and keep public snoopers away from IPO's left open to public internet on port 69 with default Administrator!

Thoughts / Comments? I think Avaya are heading in the completely wrong opposite direction to where they oughta be. one side of their operation boasts opening doors (linux App DVD), while another is furiously shutting them! FW upgrade path was a huge selling point.

 

[DanACS]

My opinion has always been if you want a small system with a few phones and no real features go and buy a panasonic or samsung - Avaya is a premium brand, not the "smart price" alternative and should be sold as such.

Avaya's main worry is not in losing the low end sales, it is that they are losing out on the mid range market (to Mitels and Ciscos) where their flagship product(ACM/AURA) is now just too costly in the current climate and the IPO didn't cut the mustard, that is why new features are being rushed through and I think the direction they are taking is absolutely correct (personally I still think they dropped the wrong system and should have developed the INDeX further rather than the IPO)

In a few more versions the product will (i think) slow down and follow the ACM path a little more with a major release every 2 years.

What I think they should do is continue down the current path with the IPO as a midsize edition and make the basic edition a totally seperate product - it does have a place but not as an IPO - i'm thinking something along the lines of what they had with the INDeX and the INDex 30 - still an IP Office but not modular and not upgradable - just a simple piece of tin aimed at the sites that are small and basic and will stay that way.

ACSS - SME
APSS - SME
APDS - Unified Communications
ACS - IP Telephony
ACA - IP Telephony

 

[amriddle01]

Dan, nothing you said there excuses the shit firmware they have been releasing lately, nor justifies the price increase they do with every release through licence changes that just charge more for existing hardware and features (but that are actually broken), their support structure is the most evasive and inefficiant example you could hope for, and the convoluted set of websites and logins you have as a BP is just madness, sort all that out and they are onto a winner

 

[Archangel58]

Sorry to revive an old thread but I wanted to verify if anyone noticed any changes. I recently obtained a new power demo kit and decided to test the Sept. 1 deadline for the R8.1 upgrade from R7.0(5). It seemed to go through ok yesterday with no errors flagged. Should I expect some future disruption?

Thanks for any feedback

 

[Phoneguy15]

@Archangel58, I am also interested in this as we recently got a new R8.0 demo.
I was going to try to upgrade before the Sept 1st "cutoff" date for the entitled upgrade but was too busy with other things to get it done.
I would still like to try it but I'm wondering if it will be a problem after 30 days or something.

 

[jamie77]

Right so now we are past the deadline, it seems IPOSS is NOT a value added option. If you find a problem and the site doesn't have this, you won't get support.

Anybody else seeing this????? I belive one of our engineers has just had a ticket turned back to him without even looking at at, as the site is 8.1 without IPOSS.

The way I read it, they have shelved the Block Of Support Hours (that we may or may not have bought!!!!) and IPOSS is what we have moving forward.

So now we really do have to pay Avaya to tell them where they went wrong with thier own s/w.

Jamie Green

Football is not a matter of life and death-It is far more important!!!!

 

[nurban]

Here's from the latest release notes... (Same paragraph in the 8.0 (46) release as well)

Tech Bulletin 147, p3
The release of 8.1(52) IP Office firmware removes the 90 day entitlement period. Any
IP500v2 system currently within the 90 day entitlement period will be set to release 8.1
when the 8.1(52) firmware is loaded and the system is restarted. Any subsequent
upgrades to a higher major or minor release will require a Software Upgrade licence to
be added to the system. New IP500v2 systems installed with firmware 8.1(52) will have
no entitlement period and will be set to 8.1 after the first call is made. A Software
Upgrade licence would then be required to upgrade to a later major or minor release if
required.

 

[tlpeter]

Jamie, are you serious???
Don't u do business with a distri?

BAZINGA!

I'm not insane, my mother had me tested!

 

[jamie77]

Yes we do Peter. I've not had to raise a question yet, but this is what I'm lead to believe.

Jamie Green

Football is not a matter of life and death-It is far more important!!!!

 

[DrDrayAvaya]

AND, because it represents such great value... resellers can now convince end users to contact Avaya directly so resellers don't have to talk to clients post sale ever again with any of the rubbish faults that pop up. awesome!
"here's a fabulous new IPPBX that WILL have bugs, and you can call those who made it yourself if you like... 24/7.... AND they'll do APR NBD for you too! WITHOUT calling the reseller?!
Our disti hasn't updated us on what's going on at all with this, so it just makes me choke to think how average resellers get dealt to with firmware bug reports/ faults etc, and now they want to take on end users direct?

am i reading the IPOSS directive correctly here or is it meant to have some hidden value there somewhere?
perhaps buy the 24/7 from Avaya, resell to customer as monthly for LOTS more, but upsell customer that they can ring Avaya 24/7 with oddities, and they'll manage the whole process.

That could actually work?!

 

[telecomtekperson]

Hey Doc, IPOSS lets you sell Co-Delivery so you can attach it to your maintenance.
We love it because we can bury it in our maint costs and we arent responsible for the hardware. Our sales guys never tell the customer they can call Avaya directly, they always call us, and we escalate as necessary.

And there is still a 90 day warranty on software, just no entitlement. So they removed the "verbiage" entitlement, but you are still available to get current code as per warranty.

 

[DrDrayAvaya]

sweet, and that's all good? so resellers actually able to bypass the disti escalation process effectively if you look at it that way.
is that the intention from Avaya though? seems to be mass confusion.? I've just put a quote thru that has about $1700 cost IPOSS 24/7 5yr, but making 350 per month for 5 years, so that maths works pretty good for me... but I could still tell them to ring Avaya for moves/changes remotely ha! a bit cheeky maybe?

 

[CarGoSki]

You can still use block of hours for 8.0 and below however they appear to consume those hours at a high rate.

 

[DrDrayAvaya]

our disti buffered that side of things, by charging a service contract one off cost to resellers/ onsold to clients (12 month voice support) then disti purchased the hours with Avaya, but dealt with problems internally themselves first if possible... so not having to pay Avaya support hours.

 

[telecomtekperson]

Dr Avaya, your previous statement is incorrect. IPOSS is "BREAK FIX" warranty only. This is not maintenance support for MAC work....

 

[jamie77]

SO, having talked with our Disti tech, it is this simple.

Our disty will talk to us, but if it is a bug on 8.1+, it can not be raised to Avaya without that site having IPOSS in place.

The cost can be swallowed into larger maintenance contracts, but smaller ones with an annual cost of < £1000 have will have to 20%+ more just to get problems fixed.

The selling point is they get Avaya support (this should be a given??) and any software upgrades they like. Truth is most SME sites don't upgrade. I can count on one hand how many of our Avaya sites have paid for an upgrade license in the last 18 months. and who pays for the engineering time to do it????

If you bought a TV and the software didn't work, you would take it back and it would get fixed or replaced. do we send Avaya thier kit back, get our money back and o off and buy a Shortell??

This model is fine in Enterprise markets where these costs are not a big %, but not the small SME.

Jamie Green

Football is not a matter of life and death-It is far more important!!!!

 

[DrDrayAvaya]

ah, well I'm learning more off you gents than our disti has told us. we haven't seen/heard a thing until it auto appears on our quotes from the disti website automatically.
could onsell this as anything we like at the moment..
I would imagine we're not likely to put the customer thru having to talk direct to the manufacturer in any instance, as the relationship lies between reseller and client 100%. i don't know many sites that love the brand so much they wanted to buy it regardless of reseller.

Cheers for clearing it up though, next stop is our Disti to find out why we're floating in the dark still...

 

[odhiambo0]

And here I am, looking into buying an IP0 500 (8.1(x))? Let me start looking for IPO412 from Amazon
I simply don't see why I should get into this mess, seriously.

 

[DrDrayAvaya]

@odhiambo0, sadly the Avaya probably is the better of all the mainstream systems.
the IP500v2 chassis have been great for us as a reseller, no duds yet. had one that had a slightly funny SD card reader, otherwise fine.
the power supplies on the IP500v1's were awful, although never admitted to by higher powers... imagine the product recall dramas.
Otherwise, have had the odd card do odd things, heaps of DC power packs that feed the older control units and expansion modules, but they're just DC power packs that run 24/7 for 5+ years. they pop eventually, like light bulbs.
The 412 will be no better in terms of firmware though too. on the whole, the error checking built into the management software must have helped immensely when it was implemented. prior to that, small oversights in programming caused all sorts of pain, combing thru the programming to find things like duplicate entries or invalid characters etc.
compared with other brands, the handsets are no different in terms of failure rates, tis the world we live in now.
In terms of those "promise/delivery" graphs, the Avaya is in the top quadrant... they just do the darndest things sometimes! drives us nuts.

If you want to see a crap product (IMHO) the Cisco UC500, which was demonstrated on stage at a big launch, and it didn't work.... at all. the system failed on stage. the staff proceeded to tell 200 techs watching that the firmware wasn't quite ready for our country at that point. too early...
cisco ship gear with firmware bugs... and you need to buy a support contract to download the fix for it. awesome strategy... and they're in the "big guns" group.. painful ay.

 

[jamie77]

odhiambo0, stick with the 500. Get it from a good BP and you will be fine.

Jamie Green

Football is not a matter of life and death-It is far more important!!!!