rocky55

Dirk, As far As I know there was no Avaya surplus in MN. In fact after the surplus MN had openings. I came from out of state to work at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. We have 20 Avaya techs here. There seems to be quite a bit of work (and Techs) up in the Twin Cities area. We just put in an 8710 for Deluxe Check (St PAul) and we had 14 Avaya techs on the job.

Avaya has started a staging area in Florida and all their IP products will be loaded with software, firmware, translations and "burned in" before they are shipped to the customers.

Avaya is actually flying thier techs in to Florida for this process, strange as they could just hire local data guys for 1/2 the price (if not less).

As far as BP's go, everyone knows 1/2 of them are a joke. A guy I work with who was a "good" tech but no star took a job with a BP and he's the go to guy, makes me wonder.

Dirk

You are correct about that.. there are guys as BP techs that would never cut it in the Avaya world.. but then again, there are Avaya guys who sit in garages, surf the internet, and get banned from sites (namely ours) after doing something incorrectly..

I don't normally understand where Avaya is going.. one day it's BPs, the next day, they want us to buy it from them and have them install it.. it's really a recipe for disaster, since Avaya sometimes cleans up after BPs, and who pays for it? The customers do, as far as time, but the $$$$ hit Avaya's techs and time.

We only hope Avaya gets back into the manufacturing and servicing directly. It would be good for everyone. I think eventually Avaya wants to sell CD-roms.. saying, "here's the software, install it on whatever platform you want.. call us with questions.." but who knows. IP telephony really doesn't buy people much, unless they are starting from scratch.. but at least Avaya can do BOTH DCP and IP..

I don't see S8300s outlasting G3sis as far as relability, but time will tell. I also concur with other posts around here that it is no longer in Avaya's best interest to roll out items that rarely break. The fact is the average Avaya customer is G3si V8, with Definity AUDIXs, or MAP40s. The rest is up for debate.

We used to buy from Avaya.. and the funny thing is.. if they could simply have shipped the right items to the right places.. just think how many millions of $$$$ they could save and then keep some technicians around. Every company has its problems, I respect that.. I wish Avaya would simply make up their minds and go 100% BP, or not at all. Being wishy washy as a sales organization will get Avaya nowhere--the AEs don't care because they see $$$ either way.. but the service suffers, etc as a result. And the future voice mail platform is absolutely insane.. hopefully, customers will make Avaya wake up..

PBXtech.info

 

liquidvw

I have never been told that I had to purchase something directly from Avaya and not a BP. I won't take that crap from anyone. As a customer I will decide who, where, and when I make a purchase from. I wouldn't let Avaya push you around like that. If you are going to purchase something, you and only you should decide who is going to get your business. If Avaya doesn't like that, tell them you are going to buy Cisco. That will shut them up!

It seems like many have had bad experiences with some techs. Myself included. I often purchase Avaya products. Some of my projects are large. I usually get more than one quote for large jobs, but I have a local BP (15 minutes away) who has 2 really good techs (I always request these techs, if they are unavaible I reschedule when they are free.) If you tell your BP that you only want their top tech, they will give it to you. If their top tech is not up to your standard, find a BP who is. All of those BP's would love you business and do what ever they had to do, inorder to earn it. My advise is to find one of the smaller BP's. Many of these have a few great techs and they give, even small accounts, great service.

Dirk

Right you are.. the smaller companies are best, especially internationally. We do not let Avaya dictate anything.. but the problem has also been legal and contracts.. Sometimes Avaya does not budge on terms, making a contract situation difficult.. then we are forced to use a BP. We too request the same "good guys" each job.. and I make sure they get gift certificates every Xmas for their efforts.. because it's not fair to punish people with additional work because they have done a great job. Remotely, we've had Avaya resurrect dead systems.. we've had them accidentally take down cabinets.. it works both ways. Still the best products bar-none.. no arguments there. We are simply unsure what their direction is.. one minute it's software/minimal equipment.. the next it's hardware and software.. you have have ESP to predict which of their products will be supported 5 years from now... and then you have to deal with taking perfectly operable equipment and tossing it in the trash for the latter.. I cannot fathom customers standing end of support for SCCs.. we'll see.. but it's like taking a perfectly operable car that is 5 years old.. tossing it into the trash. So, we don't let Avaya push us around.. and have a great relationship with them. I sincerely hope they read this.. I am a customer.. not a BP.. and I am not at all alone in my opinions... just attend INAAU and you will see. ;)

ahays

If you haven't made a final decision, I'd give CTAP a call. Let them do their dog and pony show. I highly recommend them.

regs,

.al.

__________________
Al Hays, ACE, MCSE, CCNA
Homepage: http://www.jeral.com/
Training: http://www.jeral.com/avaya-learning.html

Dirk

Hmmm.. CTAP.. they are BICSI... that's a positive.

PBXtech.info

 

sufian.saeed

Gentlemen,

I would like to revoke this discussion and would really like to know if cisco has done some improvisation in these 3 years.

reason being, our company is planning to go with cisco IPCC express for the call center infrastructure. I have already worked with AVAYA in my previous organisation and I know the strenghts AVAYA system has. That is one reason I am not very comfortable going with cisco IPCC express and based on the discussion above my fear factor is increased alot.

can someone provide the latest comparison materail on AVAYA vs Cisco?

Sufian

ahays

Attached ...

.al.

Attached Files

	Avaya CIE vs Cisco final.pdf (213.3 KB, 38 views)
	Cisco Questions IP Contact Center.pdf (69.1 KB, 24 views)
	Cisco Questions Vol III Services.pdf (62.9 KB, 17 views)
	Questions to Ask Cisco Volume IV Security.pdf (64.1 KB, 19 views)

__________________
Al Hays, ACE, MCSE, CCNA
Homepage: http://www.jeral.com/
Training: http://www.jeral.com/avaya-learning.html

penelope

My company is just starting an install of Cisco Call Manager across the board. This was TOTALLY not my decision. Our VP went against everything anyone said, we even had a very large group of people sit in on presentations and demonstrations from Cisco and Avaya and Avaya won that evaluation too. I heard that it took him 3 hours to convince the CIO to go with Cisco and also that the CIO said, "If this doesn't work out it's both of our jobs."

Well, we are in a pilot of just IT people right now, started last week. The CM has had to be re-booted twice, that I know of, to fix some problems. Unity vmail was not working for the first 4 days. Almost none of the features were working at the training sessions the first 2 days, could not call in or out, only from Cisco to Cisco phone. Only the Publisher at our data center is working still, the Subscriber at HQ won't load and the system gets so far and "halted for unspecified reasons."

The administration is a nightmare. I am NOT kidding that just to give a user Mobility it takes 7 steps in different areas of config. Every station is based on a template so a template had to be created for every combination of buttons you might have like... a 6 button phone with 1 line and 5 auto dials, 2 lines and 4 auto dials, 2 lines and 2 intercom, etc. etc. etc. You can't change one button on a user's phone without making another template and applying it to the phone.

They have this $hi! called Calling Search Space which is basically a route pattern. MUCH more complicated than a route pattern ever has to be. I HATE IT!!! There is layer upon layer upon layer on top of a device and not only that, the device itself has a profile and COS/COR and then each LINE on that device has the same. Whoever thought this up clearly has no knowledge of telecom. It's like Windows and AD with rights upon rights, which group you are in, etc.

It is an absolute nightmare... did I say that already? I can't say it enough and I can't get over how this system is administered. I hope I survive it without a breakdown or an ulcer.

__________________
Penelope

nexSIP

But its the phone on TV show '24' :)

What i would like to see is an Avaya vs Shoretel.. but thats probably a new thread.

__________________
http://www.nexsip.com
Communicate Openly and Freely

sufian.saeed

tell me about IPCC express 5.0 with Cisco Unified CM 6.0

penelope

I would be happy to tell you about IPCC when I know something about it. I'm sure I'll be getting a crash course, hopefully pun intended. I am the sole support for our call center groups ranging from very simple to menus with 7 options to one that customers call to get recorded directions with several layers deep of options.

__________________
Penelope