Future of Avaya 21

[teletechman]

Just wondering what anyone is hearing on this. I have been looking at their website and no mention of the IP Office 500 only cloud offerings now. Not sure what this means for us as installers or maintainers but it doesn't look good for the future. Every piece of literature I get from them is about the cloud.
Mike

 

[IamaSherpa]

I completely agree with @CarGoski, you @Hosted2021 talk about your own single positive experiency but we should think about general providers and ALL countries where connectivity (expecially for small/medium sized customers) could be a problem. Additionally all financial and fiscal aspects are a focus of big sized companies/end users, small and medium ones like on-prem model, like they do for chairs, servers, walls and so on.

 

[Hosted2021]

they are not focused on big company's we install hosted from 2 users up to 8-900 and now office working is dead why struggle with a on prem trying to get remote working going

 

[ipohead]

As aside I signed up for a boiler cover contract home for £x per month with first 6 months free. When it came to renew the prices was hiked by 15% so something to bear in mind when you do your sums!

 

[meyer1y2k]

I, for one, welcome hosted. It is just another tool in the box for me. I have had triumphs and nightmares with both on-prem and hosted over the years.

Whichever route, the old saying of "failing to plan is planning to fail" always applies. On-Prem can be more forgiving of poor planning.

I recently changed, for the community I live in, a large CU using an old 3COM NBX dinosaur to a hosted solution. We all did a great deal of research into the pros and cons. It was really to the point where neither choice was a particularly good or bad choice. The customer went hosted because they believed the disaster recovery options were more flexible than on-prem equipment. They are constantly upgrading equipment of all types, dealing with software upgrades, dealing with hardware going obsolete like the 3COM and felt that, while the hosted will cost more, they are investing in the provider to upgrade, deal with hardware, make sure industry standards are met, and so on. They also have the benefits of a secure IM system and a meeting system that is simple to use and requires little admin on their part. They can access up to 6 months of recorded call center calls and not deal with storage headaches. For DR, they can use a mobile app to make/take calls or forward to land lines.

On stimulus day, the system had the trial by fire. They received over 1,000 calls to the call center and the management could see in the reports that, for the most part, their staff did well. Before installation, we simulated VoIP traffic so we all were confident bandwidth and Internet performance was not an issue. Their old system with a PRI would not have handled this well but having nearly unlimited call paths from the cloud saved the day. A well designed on-prem system could have done the same thing. My point is that hosted has come a long, long, way. It is mature, and proven. Like on-prem, if the attempt to cut corners or ignore standards for convenience are made, there can be negative consequences.

In the bad old days of the 3COM, they were using a ring group to answer calls. While I was setting up and training the call center, I noticed it was chaos. Constant ringing. I was going crazy. The staff had Stockholm Syndrome and believed a "real" call center with queuing would be a disaster. The day of cutover arrived and a VP was in the call center to observe. Calls started coming in and all you would hear was conversation, keyboard clicks, and phones ringing at various available stations to deliver calls. It wasn't long before someone reported they thought their phone rang when it shouldn't. VP's first comment was, "Wow, it is so quiet in here, I can think!" Could you imagine the stress of having a difficult call and the phones constantly ringing? I would be a wreck.

Callers can now request callbacks. The fighting over that was interesting but, especially on stimulus day, it proved valuable.

Now, they want to look at providing email and SMS queues. All of this is enabled on their hosted. If we went on prem and stuck with the original work, we might be looking at costly add ons for licensing.

Yes - on prem could have done all of this and that is not my point. My point is a well planned hosted system can, and does, deliver.

On the other hand, there are plenty of scenarios where on-prem would be preferred. Good Internet service is not always a given.

A good dealer, I believe, would be cognizant of the pros and cons of either platform and will help a customer make the best choice.

 

[jamie77]

People want the flexibility these days, and Covid has accelerated this.

Truth is, an IP Office solution is not as simple to put in the cloud. This is made even worse when you want to add ACR, etc to it.

Its just too complicated to fit together, too costly up front to do, and I can understand why people go with 'born in the cloud' solutions. Its just easier and can work anywhere.

On Prem will always have a place. It will probably always be cheaper in the long run, as it is now. People don't often change their comms every few years. It tends to get left for 5+ years for the most part, so the big argument of keeping up to date is one that gets used a lot, but not really that valid in the real world.

The biggest shift is OPEX Vs CAPEX. 2 years ago, customers really looked at the 5 year cost, now its all about the monthly here and now.

It's the same as cars. Nobody buys them anymore. They just get a PCP, pay off only the depreciation and hand it back or upgrade every 4 years. The monthly cost is the only thought for 4 wheels.

Schools are a great example of on vertical I see keeping on prem for longer than others.

The biggest issue us traditional comms dealers have id the IT dealers. They are all now picking up hosted systems as its much easier to do. From experience, customer seem to trust the IT guy over the comms guy.

Having said all this, I am skeptical about how long the IP Office has left. The roadmap doesn't ever mention IPO 12. Will it ever get there? We have challenged Avaya directly and they insist there are no plans to EoS the IP Office range, so maybe we will after multiple R11.1 Feature Packs!

But there are some pretty cool things coming this year on the product.

Jamie Green

[bold]A[/bold]vaya [bold]R[/bold]egistered [bold]S[/bold]pecialist [bold]E[/bold]ngineer

 

[Westi]

Both have their place.

Not every place can get "good" DsL (or DsL at all)

some places are maxed out at 1/5 and try making 2 phone calls plus sending emails plus having someone surfing the Internet which you will find in companies a lot of times and you will find severe problems with voice quality. I had that 1/5 in the beginning of DsL in my house and I had to reserve 250 kbps bandwidth for my phone calls which took away 25% of my total upload bandwidth to guarantee 1 good phone call or 2 half decent ones.

This forum is international and some of us visit places that can't even get DsL service and that are using line of sight Internet provided by small providers that have not invested a whole lot of money into their infrastructure and once you are 3 antennae down from the main you can forget VoIP completely.

So that is why I say both have their place. For me hosted is a no go because I am ... frugal even though some people call me cheap and don't want to pay more a month per user that I am paying right now for my entire SIP trunk.

Joe
FHandw, ACSS (SME)

Remembering intrigrant 2019