Is release 11 the end of the line with Avaya IP Office? 9

[btianinidaho]

Hello. Havent posted here much. Went to the Partners trade show in Vegas last month and everything, including Avaya, was cloud, cloud, cloud.
Avaya there couldn't tell me so I am wondering what everyone's thougths are here on this topic-
Is there going to be a release 12 or higher for the IPO and if so when?
Thoughts?

 

[nnaarrnn]

I hope not. If it is, and we're forced to something else, it definitely won't have an Avaya logo on it.

 

[derfloh]

I’ve seen roadmap PPTs telling that IPO development will go on. But how true this is… who knows

IP Office remote service
IP Office certificate check
CLI based call blocking
SCN fallback over PSTN

 

[ipohead]

Everyone is pushing the cloud has it gives a continual revenue stream and potentially a reduced hardware inventory.

I could see it becoming all IP so no more Digital Stations and in the UK ISDN and PRI trunks are being phased out by 2025.

 

[derfloh]

They are also pushing subscription licensing opposed to perpetual.

IP Office remote service
IP Office certificate check
CLI based call blocking
SCN fallback over PSTN

 

[AvayaRed]

Did anyone go to or watch Avaya Engage? I did not but all the headlines I saw was also cloud. I too am curious about the plans for IP Office. With the large footprint, they will still sell hardware I assume for replacement parts but in terms of feature pack updates, I am also curious of the move forward.

 

[critchey]

Avaya hasnt had the IP 500 V2 on their site since they partnered with Ringcentral (perhaps even longer then that). If they can phase out the IPO they will but they are always people with bad or no internet available. The question is does Avaya care enough to continue on with IPO when they have never cared much about the SMB market despite being a leader in said market...

The truth is just an excuse for lack of imagination.

 

[ItsAlwaysACheckBox]

They have confirmed there will not be any additional major releases beyond 11.1 and they are recommending not to sell IPOSS to customers but move them to ACO. Add that to the fact they are requiring partners to get a sign off that the partner offered ACO or even in some cases call the customer themselves on any deal larger than 4,000 USD before the distro will process the sale.

IP Office is dead they just wanted to squeeze all hardware they have in stock before the announcement. Server Edition might stay longer but that's mainly because its all software.

1400 are EoS
9508s are dangerously low in stock and are EoS soon as they run out.
D100 are gone and the D200 will never come out to a Dying product line.
500v2 cabinets are end of manufacturing but no one has any true details or information on the 500v2b chassis release date.
ATM 16 Modules are EoS
The writing is all on the walls.

And let's not get started on all the IPO Backbone engineers that they moved to ACO leaving sub par support for the product line.

It's been a great ride and sad to see it go but their interest is purely subscription based with cloud and from a channel partner base to a agent base tacit.

 

[btianinidaho]

ITsalwaysacheckbox, please explain this more: as this seems like new info, when you say : Add that to the fact they are requiring partners to get a sign off that the partner offered ACO or even in some cases call the customer themselves on any deal larger than 4,000 USD before the distro will process the sale

 

[critchey]

They have confirmed there will not be any additional major releases beyond 11.1

They have? Does anyone have something in writing stating this?

The truth is just an excuse for lack of imagination.

 

[Albus2]

@ItsAlwaysACheckBox

This is a combination FUD and misunderstanding.
They push AURA customer to the subscription model and there we shall not see any new version number other than 10.1 (not 11.1) because it shall be a continuous upgrade with fixes and new features. Similar to Windows10.

The material you listed are item which are no more asked by customers. Heck! Are you still selling digital phones and Analogue lines??

The rest are the same wrong arguments we hear since several years.

 

[AvayaRed]

I too am also curious about the the future plan is for both IPO/Avaya. Not just Avaya, but Mitel, Atos, and Alcetel has all partnered with Ring on the UCaaS platform. Avaya has been trying to flip alot of the old IPO/Partner PBXs to ACO but I am curious what is the plan when the partnership ends (if I remember correctly, it was 5 years and it stared in 2019). In a few years IF IPO is gone (like ITsAlwaysACheckBox is predicting), will Avaya just push Aura on Prem and OneCloud (ReadyNow) only or renew the contract with RingCentral since the IPO product is not being pushed since the ACO partnership and they will not want to lose that market since there is alot of IPO equipment out in the wild.

Or is RingCentral going to plan to acquire Avaya? It is obvious that Avaya wants ACO to be successful and with Avaya often trying to be bought out in past years, I really am curious about the direction since a lot of us have spent our careers learning skills in the Avaya/Nortel platform.

 

[AvayaRed]

I really hope the talk of the IPO is ending is fud since these boxes are very versatile and again, alot of us made careers out of those boxes.

 

[tac84]

I'm an IPO 500v2 user with IPOSS. J series IP handsets and SIP trunks. Some of the above is a concern but it doesn't sound like the information is rock solid. The concept of Avaya Cloud Office is nice, but expensive. I own my hardware and licenses at the moment. If I was to move over to ACO, I would probably have to replace all of the J series handsets with the ACO compatible ones, then pay a monthly fee for each extension. Over the course of a year, it will cost a fortune based on the costs I've seen for each user on ACO. The only advantage of it is being able to potentially access preferred edition features.

I can't see why any small or even medium business would go down this path when all they're paying for at the moment is the cost of the SIP trunk provider, which is dirt cheap.

Happy to be educated by you guys in the know, but I'm not seeing an upside of moving over to ACO. I guess I could potentially migrate over to Server Edition if that's the only support offer moving forward.

Thanks, Tim
Adelaide, Australia

 

[gwebster]

@tac84 - A J100 that works on IPO (or Aura) can be reconfigured to work on ACO. No new J100 required.

 

[tac84]

Good to know- Thanks @gwebster

Thanks, Tim
Adelaide, Australia

 

[jamie77]

Last I knew. 11.2 was in plan for beta test next year.

I too have my doubts that the end is coming, but Avaya say it isn't. We've asked many times directly.

If we ever see 12, I suspect it will be subscription, but I don't know this for fact.

Lots of customer want UcaaS now, but the pandemic has changed that attidude a lot. Time will tell if it stays that way. We all now UCaaS will ALWAYS be more expensive if you look longer than 3-4 years in the future. Lets be honest, most people keep their comms system for more like 10 years.

Jamie Green

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

 

[sizbut]

The writings on the wall - for sure, but then that's what ItsAlwaysaCheckBox said last year. Yes, Avaya is pushing ACO in favour of everything else, but that's not just IP Office, its also applies to Aura, CM, etc.

Why? - well "I can't see why any small or even medium business would go down this path when all they're paying for at the moment is the cost of the SIP trunk provider, which is dirt cheap" "Lets be honest, most people keep their comms system for more like 10 years." - Both explain it well and its not exactly a new issue. A vast number of customers, once the system is in, never buy anything from Avaya again, it's pretty much a one-off payment. Especially down at small end of the market. Avaya's stated estimate was that they never saw any repeat revenue from over 70% of small customers. That's not exactly something you can take to banks and investors when you want to renew loans and invest in new idea.

But it doesn't mean they have abandoned on-premise, just that the direction of travel is clear. Premise still counts for a huge (really huge in the US) customer base that does generate some revenue and can't just been abandoned for competitors to pick up.

So what for IP Office? Lets look at some of the FUD.

[ul]
[li]They have confirmed there will not be any additional major releases beyond 11.1 - Who confirmed? As said, R11.2 is already on the schedule.[/li]
[li]1400 are EoS - And we all know that EoS just applies to Avaya's stock. They and many other EoS items can still be obatined from many other sources (another motivation for Avaya to want to move to subscription). [/li]
[li]9508s are dangerously low in stock and are EoS soon as they run out. - Ditto[/li]
[li]D100 are gone and the D200 will never come out to a Dying product line. - Already trialed and supported in R11.1 FP2, its the release of the D200 that's been delayed, not the IP Office support for them.[/li]
[li]500v2 cabinets are end of manufacturing but no one has any true details or information on the 500v2b chassis release date. - Its IP500 V2A and its already announced, along with DS8A and new PRI card. But Avaya have been upfront that they won't release the new stock until they've emptied the warehouse of their existing old models.[/li]
[li]ATM 16 Modules are EoS - Much the same as phones. [/li]
[/ul]

...and IP Office is already available as a subscription model for countries not supporting ACO. And I wouldn't exactly fall of my chair if I hear it and CM turning up as non-IP gateways for ACO.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - yes'ish. Fear, Uncertainty and Death - Not just yet.



Stuck in a never ending cycle of file copying.

 

[tac84]

Very good summary, @sizbut.

I'm due to renew IPOSS in April 2022. I guess I'll decide then if I bother to spend the AUD$600 and go another year if R11.2 is in the works. Given I'm really only using J series SIP phones I can make the jump to ACO at any stage. I just hate the thought of paying a monthly fee per extension when on-premise is costing me virtually nothing. I know....first world problems!

Thanks, Tim
Adelaide, Australia

 

[AvayaRed]

@sizbut agreed, great summary. It would make a lot of sense for Avaya to make the IP500 a gateway for ACO since that is the market Avaya is targeting to transition to the cloud.

With all the IPO equipment out there, it does not make sense to discontinue it but the same argument could have been said about the CS1000 and that had systems in the Fortune 500 enterprises and government. If I remember correctly, after Avaya acquired Nortel in 2009, CS1000 R6 was released around that time and the final release (excluding service packs) of the CS1000 was R7.6 in around 2013 range so Avaya is not afraid to stop development of good PBXs.

Has Avaya posted any IP Office Roadmap powerpoints/webinars/bootcamps? I have seen the Aura 10 ones and it is on YouTube but have not seen anything talking about IP Office in awhile.