Is the 4000 dead?

[GZgidnick]

Hi Guys,

I would like to hear your opinion from the subject.
There is many of us here, from different regions on the planet.

What is the 4000 market share, how easy is to find techs, what is your experience with Unify from both product development and support perspective.
Finally, do you think is time to say goodbye to the good old RMX or do you see its reincarnation in the cloud?

 

[donb01]

The nice thing about the 4000 is is is completely adaptable from 100% IP to a hybrid of IP, Digital and Analog technologies. I think as long as there a places with hospitals that have patient rooms, fax machines and credit card terminals, and other "old" things lying round the 4000 is going to have a place in the world. Im our company we have about 400 analog devices, mostly IP, and then some "Digital" devices (OS40T). IP is great and all, but what happens if the network goes down? Those analog and digital phones are wired completely separate from the network and will continue to work normally as long as the 4K has power. Because of the AP sheleves can be located anywhere, and the APE cassette that can keep that shelf running locally in the event of loss of network back to the main 4K, the system has great capacity for redundancy in locations where that is really important. Just think for a moment if you need 240 analog phones and you have traditional distributed building wiring. If you have a pure IP system now you have to buy 10 of the Mediatrix gateways that can do 24 each, put them in a rack (or two) along with cable management, and then find a way to integrate all that into your building wiring... I think that scenario alone, along with those that still have traditional trunking and a few other things is going to define a futrue for the 4K for maybe 10 years at least - but who knows what can happen in 10 years in this field!!

As far as service, I think there are a number of reliable organizations providing service out there, and you can take the classes and train your own people. In some cases the costs of the parts are coming down as more spares show up in the market, and Unify is still actively providing new software upgrades and features to keep the system current. Unify has their own set of support forums as well now that are free for the asking and monitored by staffers (you should sign up for an account either way because then you have access to the full library of documentation and "select" software and firmware upgrades).

Anyway, we are heavily invested in the 4K platform and I really don't have any worries of it going anywhere in the near future. When we upgraded in 2014 we pretty much figured we would be set for at least 10 years before we have to start thinking about it again.

Don Bruechert, Voice Comm Analyst II
CareTech Solutions @ Holy Family Memorial
Manitowoc, WI, USA

 

[LoPath]

Unify has a bad habit of phasing things out through their lack of support. "Planned obsolescence".

[b]Version Name		Released     GA Date	  Order Stop   Expansion Stop		End of Dev Support	Phase-Out[/b]	
HiPath 4000 V5  	2009-04-29   2009-04-29   2011-10-30   2015-04-29   		2013-08-30   		2018-02-27 (Planned)  
HiPath 4000 V6  	2011-03-03   2011-03-03   2014-04-29   2016-06-29   		2016-02-28   		2017-08-30  
OpenScape 4000 V7  	2013-11-10   2013-11-27   2017-09-03   2018-12-30 (Planned)  	2019-12-30 (Planned)  	2020-12-30 (Planned)  
OpenScape 4000 V8  	2016-12-04   2016-12-11  
OpenScape Voice V7  	2012-06-21   2012-07-12   2015-02-01   2017-11-05   		2017-02-19   		2018-08-19 (Planned)  
OpenScape Voice V8  	2014-08-03   2014-08-07   2016-09-04   2018-07-01 (Planned)  	2018-07-01 (Planned)  	2020-01-05 (Planned)  
OpenScape Voice V9  	2016-01-31   2016-03-06

LoPath
Maintain HiPath 4000 V5 & V6, OpenScape Xpert V4, Xpressions, Contact Center

 

[GZgidnick]

I think Unify really wants 8K pushed as far out to their customers as they possibly can.
And it make sense, as the 8K is indeed incepted in the cloud and this where it all goes this time and age.
Unfortunately 4K is messing up their strategy as it has to many faithful customers that don't wanna let go. I can remember losing BMW as a customer in Europe a decade ago by forcing them to replace 4K with 8K which never delivered the promise. It's been a long since of course and 8K is a mature platform now.

 

[Moriendi]

I don't think OSV is pushed over 4K anymore like it used to be. That strategy cost them a lot of customers, a painful time for Unify, and a complete failure to recognize that OSV does not fit everywhere. OSV is a good choice for some scenarios - but not all. Probably made Cisco very happy at the time. Developments in 4K have been fantastic, running in ESX, geo separated processors, server based IP shelves, if you want them. TDM shelves with digitals, analogues, if you want them. SIP trunks, SIP phones, different variants of QSIG, ETSI, analog paging equipment, analogue trunks, fantastic multi node DECT cordless, proper attendant consoles, excellent directory software. It does everything, hugely flexible.

 

[GZgidnick]

The development in 4K is obvious especially with the latest v8 OSMO, Circuit, Branch and above all, SBC announced enhancements.
However though OSV is still being advertised as the recommend path to upgrade, officially by Unify, therefore I don't thing their strategy changed. It is less intrusive now.
OSV in my opinion is the most feature rich SIP server on the planet. The SIP stack is very advanced. Now on the other side the SIP stack implemented in 4K is very restricted. Same vendor same know-how.
Unify also announced EOL for 4K in 2025. Not saying they won't extend it but all I'm saying is.... they'll eventually do it.

 

[donb01]

Of course that's just EOL in 2025 - I bet it goes down like the old 9006 boxes - those things are still out there - I only ditched mine 3 years ago. The parts are at commodity status, the phones are dirt cheap - why upgrade if you don't have a specific need to do it? Of course if you want a service contract you're pretty well screwed, but...

Don Bruechert, Voice Comm Analyst II
CareTech Solutions @ Holy Family Memorial
Manitowoc, WI, USA

 

[Moriendi]

The OSV is an excellent SIP server because it has to be. If you want SIP subscribers or SIP trunks then OSV has got you covered, cannot deny it's a fantastic machine for that. But if you want something else like attendant consoles, analogue extensions, PRI TDM trunks, you need to start adding on the external boxes. Does anyone really want floor to ceiling Mediatrix units with all that extra protocol conversion, extra management GUI's? It's not ideal. So you can't really compare 4K and OSV as like for like. Some scenarios better suit OSV, some (like anything where there is more than a little TDM), better suit 4K. And if you want SIP on 4K, it's no problem. Native SIP trunk support to third parties on 4K is excellent, as supported RFCs confirm. Where there is a difference in SIP support between OSV and 4K is SIP subscriber. Cornet protocol for phones as provided by 4K is hugely feature rich, and if you have a 4K with Openstage TDM's or HFA's, there's really no reason to use SIP subscriber, you won't gain anything. Internal politics restricted the development of SIP subscriber features on 4K when SIP became popular because there was concern that it would interfere with OSV sales. So 4K could provide SIP connectivity for subscribers, it worked, but features were limited. No real issue as it didn't need them, use HFA instead. But it would have been nice to have those boxes ticked. This development restriction seems to be no longer the case though and SIP subscriber features have taken a leap forward with the new UFIP configuration method for providing SIP subscribers on 4K from V7 R2, I guess they saw the light. There are still feature restrictions of course but it's not like it was, and it'll only get better.

For a customer invested in 4K, EOL statement would not concern me. Development for both OSV and 4K has been rapid, and with both of them now supported in ESX, all sorts of interesting things could be done. I'm sure a suitable upgrade path for whatever system is then current, regardless of what it's called, will be provided.

 

[GZgidnick]

Hi Morendi,

Where I work we almost entirely ditched the old ACWin consoles (new installations, old are still out there). All new customer coming in are just getting Concierge.... and they seems to be loving it. It is an OSV product, all SIP. Bolted on the 4K but works really well.
As far as TDM goes, 4K is your natural choice I must admit.
SIP devices on 4K can have up to 2 channels. This is hugely restrictive when implementing non-Unify SIP clients with the 4000, as line count is crucial to get around incompatibilities such as MoH, transfer, conference amongst other features. And again, why would you go for this 3rd party SIP devices? Answers is cost as always. Perfect example is a patient phone.

And it is indeed confusing, the increased rate of 4K development and the announced EOL. Particularly considering 4K is now getting SBC addition to its platform. This opens new perspective such as, teleworkers, collaboration, mobile clients, remote offices etc... all of them, cloud native features, embraced by many companies as affordable and effective alternative to the old traditional deployments.
And also, the even better integration with Circuit since v8.

Is it heading off to the cloud just to be axed half way through?

It looks like internally OSV and 4K are competing rather than complimenting and you have two different development/support teams within the organization unwilling to give up on the product, that seams to be especially the case for the 4K guys.
Unify are masters at getting customers confused nonetheless.