I would recommend you find a Shoretel partner to talk to. I would also recommend you find some other vendors as well. Cisco for sure.
From: Chyka, Robert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:50 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VOIP Vendor Question... I hear you on the complexity of the question. Right now we have 2 sites. Our largest site, 400 phones is still on an old school Mitel PBX (this is the one we need to replace soon) our other site has a 90 phone call manager 5.1 install. It is all flat calling. Routing is pretty normal. We can do QOS. They are saying they don't want to make the decision based upon budget. We will be managing it in house. Our cisco infrastructure is 80% POE. The pres also said not to take into consideration that our remote site is call manager. (our PBX vendor is nervous that they are getting the boot and had Mitel call our director of operations etc and I get the dirty job of why we should go Call Manager or Mitel VOIP. Thanks.. _____ From: Martin Blackstone [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:19 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VOIP Vendor Question... This is such a difficult question. There is a lot riding on it and ultimately once you make the decision you can never really go back. What is your phone infrastructure like now? Is it just flat calling, or do you have a call center? Is your routing sophisticated or pretty normal? Do you have remote sites? If you do, can you do QOS? What's your budget like? Who is going to manage it? Do you have a phone guy? Does your Cisco infrastructure support POE? So many questions! When I did my last phone system, I looked at the big boys like Nortel and Avaya. I never really liked their VOIP systems because they seemed to me like a shim to their traditional PBX's. Maybe that's changed, but that's how it felt. In the end I narrowed it down to Shoretel and Cisco. Cisco blew the budget out of the water and offered no wiggle room (at least until I chose Shoretel, then there was lots of wiggle room, but too late). Shoretel was the choice and we never looked back. It is a great phone system. This isn't like Dell or HP. It's a huge decision that takes a lot of time. From: Chyka, Robert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:04 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: VOIP Vendor Question... If you were rolling out a new phone system in 8 months to a year and your current PBX is Mitel and your infrastructure is Cisco, which VOIP vendor would you choose and why? I need some ammo here.. it would be for up to 400 phones.. Thanks.Bob C. ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
