Hello Enthusiasts: I've been pretty quiet about this whole affair :). Yes it was me who made the first comment to Simon that these phones are just too damn hard to configure!!! Just observing the responses of people on the Polycom's. Yes, this is an enterprise class IP phone but it lacks two major features:
1. Easy configuration via web ui. 2. Horrible/Does Not work behind a NAT. (to my experience). 3. Startup time is too long! Yes, I see Polycoms at the enterprise level at organizations publicly traded but have not come across a single Polycom install at small & medium size business in the last 4 years since my arrival back to Toronto. This is a beautiful phone set and enterprise class. However I think for a company to survive this new economy, they have to make their technologies easy to implement at SMB market place as this constitutes over 85% of the market place. Being "enterprise" class is simply not enough, and VOIP consultants will easily take up an easier phone such as the Aastra or Linksys and others in the market. I have used almost every SIP phone & ATA available in the Canadian market today and have played with some from the Chinese market that have not made their way through in Canada in huge numbers. In my first hand experience, Polycoms are a big pain to configure and ranks last in easy configurability. For a product to truly succeed I think the key ingredients are: 1. Must look good. 2. Must work good. 3. Must be easy to configure. 4. Must be easy to use. These are my thoughts and I hope Polycom will come up with a new firmware supporting an easy web GUI, that will make life easy for some of the consultants I know first hand here in TAUG, who are actively deploying phone systems. This is a beautiful high-tech looking phone and I sincerely hope Polycom releases a neat firmware that supports both NAT and easy GUI configuration. Cheers! Reza.
