Cost Effective Hicom 300e upgrade? 1

[rcritchet]

I have a Hicom 300e Model 30; installed in 1998; at least an OS release level behind. Installed at the same time AVT (OS2).
This was installed by a VAR who provided Everything - adding users, moving extensions, etc. but it was all under their control.
At this point, the AVT is not supported at all ("hope it don't break for you"), the switch itself is trimmed back to Fix/Break maint.

My question is: Considering the AVT HAS to be replaced, the current age & OS of the switch & then the degree of tech expertise to manage it, Would the my company be better served by upgrading or replacing? (btw I'm am the Tech Support dept for this)
I appreciate any opinions

 

[donb01]

I'm going to sound partially stupid, and partially knowing here, but I don't know what AVT is....

As to the model 30, how much maintenance are you doing to it yourself? Any? Are you doing any routine moves and changes, or do you have no access to the system at all? I would think it is safe to say that the system you have will be viable for at least 5 more years, where you should have no trouble getting service or parts if needed. No matter who installed it you still should be able to get service from black box voice services on a time and materials basis - phones are pretty much a cheap commodity you can get anywhere, so I guess "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Of course, that being said, you do need to evaluate your organization's needs and whether they are being met currently by what you have, and whether they will continue to be met in the forseeable future. If not, it might be time to investigate your options and move into something that is more in line with your business needs.

If you happen to know what software version you are running, 6.4 is getting pretty old now, but 6.5 isn't that far off base - as they stopped at 6.6. It may be not that expensive to do a software upgrade to the latest version, which will also give you the administrative tool (LC-Win) and a login on the system to use it with. You won't be able to do everything from there, but you will be able to do the most important stuff from a customer perspective - and that can keep you going for quite some time.

 

[rcritchet]

Thx! The AVT is the voice/auto attendant portion, now names AVST. OS is 6.4 - we had to scramble to find a version of LCWin to load when the Operators PC hard disk crashed

Last system I had to manage was Definity+2 Merlins+Audix, so as much as I can manage, I want to. Phones & premise wiring - no problem.
When I asked about upgrading the voice mail part, the VAR said it would cost 30K+ to upgrade the switch OS. Or of course Buy a New Switch. hmmm...
According to AVST enginering, the switch OS does not matter.
hmmm....

Anyway, I am trying to find out if it is worth it to upgrade both switch & VM, or go with a new VOIP system

 

[donb01]

Well I am working on adding ACD to some of my switches, and that is averaging $18,000 each and that includes upgrading the OS from 6.4 to 6.6, new processor board, ACD Server processor and all the licenses associated with it, so I can't believe just upgrading the OS to the latest version would run much more than $9000 or so.

I'm using Siemens Phonemail for that application, and hoping to upgrade to Expressions in the next year or so.

I still think, depending on how many phones and accessories you have, if you don't have any pressing business need for the latest and greatest features that it would be cheaper to upgrade than to buy a whole new system and phones.

 

[donb01]

Just FYI, I am in the process of doing an upgrade from 9006.4 to 9006.6 (or 300H v1.0). Here is some typical pricing - which is probably confidential - hopefully my sales rep doesn't hang out here! This is probably typical and subject to other stuff that could affect the pricing.

Reconfig charge: $1156
Mod80EX 6.4 to V1.0 upgrade: $4090 - which I assume includes the hardware needed.

There is also labor and implementation charges, which would be difficult to break out because I am also adding ACD and some other stuff, but might as well assume about $5000 (might be high).

So you should be able to upgrade from 6.4 to latest version for under $11,000. This is also the cost for an 80EX. A 30 might be a tad cheaper.