Looking for realistic evaluation on IPO system 3

[hivotech]

I am in the process of junking our 1992 phone system and have the selection narrowed to the NEC IPK 192 and the Avaya IP Office (406). EVERYONE I have talked to says to steer clear of the IP Office product. Except of course for the national vendor who claims to sell over a hundred per month. I don't think they would risk their reputation on a bad product. A local Avaya servicer would install it. I see a lot of experience on this forum and would like to know if you feel this product has a higher incidence of problems than other systems your are familiar with. As of now, we a talking only one office and using 4412 type phone, and maybe re-use some of our existing analog phones. No VoIP. I am looking at the "creature features" because if someone can not transfer a call for example, it's my headache. Voice mail and Auto Attendant are also very important. Thanks

 

[crashtest1000]

We used to compete against NEC in our market, but since the introduction of IP telephony and application based telephony platforms like IP Office. The NEC and other Japanese manufactures are losing ground in fact the only thing that keeps the NEC going are third party applications which aren’t even designed by NEC Japan.

Most dealers who sell NEC have moved to other products i.e. IP Office.

Ask yourself some questions
Have a look at the PC bases applications on NEC, ask you self a question can you self administer the NEC?

How easy is it to configure the Auto attendant? can you do a 64 party conference on NEC? can you manage and install the applications on users PCs without calling an NEC tech.

By the way have you found a tech forum on this brand of NEC I think not!

PS ask you’re the Avaya dealer for a couple reference sites.

 

[rwddozier]

Our lease on a Definity G3 recently expired. Five years of minor problems like a port failure here and there - then a voice mail hard drive crash with no recent tape backup that was supposed to be 'automatically' done said the installer of the system. It was very difficult for us to make any changes much less any involved changes. We had to call our installer to make those type of changes for us for a fee of course. Anyway, now having our IP 403 and Voice Mail Pro 2.0 in place for about two weeks (for 1/5th the cost of the G3), we are now doing everything the G3 did for us and much more. We are very comfortable making any changes and we already have ventured into new things we only dreamed of doing with the G3. I really think the G3 could have done some of these things but it would have cost an arm and a leg to do it. We are very pleased with the system even though we still have a slight configuration issue with the paging speaker setup. It works but not as documented - that's another post. We are using 4412D+ phones with 8 POTS phones around our offices, voice mail and other features like tranfer and conferencing with user learning curves. We just wish the IP office was available when we leased the G3. Hope this helps.

 

[hivotech]

Funny, the Definity is what a local Avaya dealer is wanting to pitch to me. His initial quote was list and about twice what the quote the IPO was. He also insisted the Definity was much easier to program than the IPO. Quit laughing you guys.....

I spoke to someone with an IPO 403, unfortunately way to far to travel to, and he said some things that explained why all the negative feedback. From what I gathered, version 1.x was really buggy (hey, version 1 is always full of bugs). Version 2 is "stable". He purchased his system in June 03 and it came with 1.4. I can see why so many people jumped on the system and then disliked it so much.

I still am uncertain about the IPO. A demo CD should be arriving in the mail and the reseller wanst to do a webinar to show me more features. I've heard the line "does not work as advertised" a couple of times about the system. Could be older revisions or improper installation. It still make me nervous to spend that kind of money on a heavily used and depended upon resource with so many unanswered questions.

 

[upstateny]

I have 2 friends who own interconnects who sell the IP Office and both have said it is very fluky - it is not ready for prime time - yet. Bottom line is the everyday features do not work anywhere as reliably as your current equipment - question to ask is why do you really need a pure ip system?? We have an ESI IP system in our office and have no troubles at all but it really doesn't offer any advantages over a pure digital system in a 1 location setting.

 

[franke]

Our office has been running the IPO R1.4 for about 4-5 months now and the only failure was a computer crash (a hard drive not an IPO problem). Coming from a Merlin Magix environment, we kept some of the user learning curve down by programming their phones (4400 series) with buttons they were already familiar with. We did end up changing the VM PRO from the default to the Audix emulation. Seems most users were more comfortable with that platform.

I would say that the majority of repair cases that we respond to are the result of faulty installation and initial programming. Bottom line, make sure the Avaya dealer you select has technicians certified to install the IPO. Also ask for customer references.

As a tech and our own sys admin, what I would like to see is more 'maintenance commands'.

franke

 

[IPGuru]

I have to agree with frankie, almoste every faulty system I have seen has been due to either poor programming or poor understanding of the customers requirements, often both.

The biggest problem with the IPO is that instalation an programming is simple - deceptivly simple this can lead people into mnaking sily mistakes or missing a solution to an unusual request.

 

[MTVilla]

I have to mention one thing about the IP Office. I have had almost NO training on the system whatsoever. I am currently supporting a small community networked IP Office 412 with a 406 at the satellite office. I can test changes to the 406 in Philadelphia via an IP phone here in Minneapolis that I set up to run on the switch in Philly. Most of our early issues with the system were programming related and were easy fixes.

We have had a few bugs with our system, but we started at 1.3. Now at 2.0 I am very happy with the system, and look forward to some more features that are coming out it rev 2.1.

When I can't get information about something from my vendor, Avaya's website, or the documentation. I can usually get it from this forum (IPGuru is a genius!).

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[hivotech]

Thanks, MTvilla.

I just got out of a 2 hour meeting with an Avaya dealer (who uses this forum so I have to be careful of what I say). Many of my concerns were put to rest. The engineer was very knowledgeable about the IPO. While the basic programming can be quite simple as you attested to, he also said it can get you in deep trouble. The programming can also get quite deep if you need to, at least that is the way it sounded to my un-trained ears.

You are the 2nd person to tell me they programmed it themselves. I wonder how many have tried and failed and then blamed the system?

 

[IPGuru]

Chears MT villa with over 500 IPO/alchemy/IPNC sites to manage you begin to understand this system a little (but I am still discovering new tricks!)

 

[yogibear1977]

The IP O is a great system wich provides a high-end feature set (Phonemanager Lite, Voicemail Lite) in the default configuration. You should try to find an other system who will allso give you these features for free.

As a matter of fact we are using an IP O 403 with PhoneMan-Pro, Vm-Pro and are very happy with it!

 

[prei11y]

Hello, many great Posts to this thread. The IPO at first is a bit quirky to as you are constantly FTP'ing any add, moves and changes to the IPO Server (pbx is past tense Dinosaur terminology). Some changes require a reboot yet, others do not (very gray area!)

The IPO is an pretty good all in one platform, it is designed to go where the future in Telecom/Data is going. Router, L2-Switch, VPN applicance, CSU; as well as Phone system in one box. Once the understanding Curve is achieved (all of about 6 hours)
the IPO is a very stable platform. Yes Avaya's documentation is not all that comprehensive, (a little to general not specific enough) leaves alot of guess work to understand as to what was meant with various Help Topics, but the User forums have been corrected that issue many times.
The IPO is ready for Prime Time, I have many deployed in banks, where the IPO has performed very well and is under great scrutiny so it has to be operational 99.999% of the time. The ability to maintain many IPO's in a VoIP-SCN has been a huge bonus to the telecom group. If they get in a bind the .cfg is mailed to me and I test the features myself, no windshield time required.
The IPO is a good communication server The problem with the IPO is the convergence of Voice and Data, creating a slight intimidation factor.
-pr

 

[MrIPO]

I total reakon 90% of IPO faults I receive are related to programming errors, or the engineers weak knowledge of the product. My best reccomendation is make sure the engineer knows his stuff sideways and if not 100% sure he can complete this installation find another reseller that can.

I see so many resellers (SALES People) promise the world but when push comes to shove the IPO cannot do it and a definity should have been installed. Or the engineer simply does not understand the product.

As long as your installing engineer has had some decent experence with IPO the installation should go very smoothly.

I just installed a 412 - 320 DT extensions 75 were CCC Agents and extensive Voicemail Pro intergration, no problems whatsoever with Version 2. This was the largest CCC IPO site in the world.

 

[hivotech]

Thanks, everyone for your inputs

I spent another 2 hours on WebEx to my reseller with my CFO and COO. Every question we asked, the reseller/technician had an (easy) answer on how to do it. I am convinced, as Mr.IPO strongly suggested, they know this system inside and out. They even have a way to avoid the re-boot issue whey hunt groups and new users are created. Both of the execs were impressed and I could see the wheels turning in their heads for using the conference bridge and having our 2 out-side sales people (in another state) use our system by using IP phones. Our parent company is in Germany, so I asked about a red colored phone for them to use. No such luck. Darn....

Now for the real fun. Now that I have decided to purchase this system, I have to determine what accessories I need to use the system to its fullest potential.

 

[MrIPO]

You can always get a can of red spray paint !!

Good luck and enjoy the IPO. You made a good choice trust me !!!

 

[rsunra]

hivotech

>> They even have a way to avoid the re-boot issue whey hunt groups and new users are created.

Do you think you can get this information out of them... This causes us major headaches and long night for me.. I would love to know how to add a hunt group / users without rebooting!!!!

 

[IPGuru]

This is one of the enhancements due to be included in V2.1
Currently on trial & due for release around June

 

[hivotech]

On adding users- my understanding is they add a bunch of dummy users and groups initially. Then they populate these as needed. At least this is what I understood. I could be way off base never having seen the system in action. I don't know what the down side of this is.