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Polycom hatred, ouch

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Fatboy40

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I haven't worked with 3CX for around a year now, moved to a new job, but may be setting up another 3CX system in the near future so have visited here now and again.

I have to say that I'm very shocked by the outright hatred of Polycom SPIP phones now shown by 3CX. For me the build quality was better than the Cisco SPA's and once I got into the swing of it I far prefered managing the Polycom SPIP's via an FTP server rather than provisioning them with 3CX, I had so much more control over them (more than the Cisco SPA's ever gave me).

If had to setup a new 3CX server I'd definately be using Polycom phones again, Grandstream's and Yealink's just feel cheap and nasty.
 
I use soundpoint IP's in my office among other handsets and I've had no problems at all. They work great, not sure where all the hate is coming from.
 
As a reseller I have had experience with Cisco SPA's, Yealinks, and Polycom's. As a rule we are now offering only polycom handsets. Like said above I believe the build quality is top notch, the sound quality both on the speaker phone and handset sound the best out of the three different vendors.

They do behave differently on some things like paging that I dont like. Otherwise they are solid. Provisioning is easy and the customers prefer the LCD side car over the paper side car for Cisco SPA's and the silly paper side buttons on the yealink. And they support electronic hook switch for headsets.

I don't think we will be selling anything else.
 
netswork said:
...Provisioning is easy and the customers prefer the LCD side car over the paper side car for Cisco SPA's and the silly paper side buttons on the yealink. And they support electronic hook switch for headsets.

The LCD side cars are a huge plus point for me as well, and yet 3CX are basicaly saying to potential customers 'don't buy them', crazy eh ?.
 
Just to be objective:

Fatboy40 said:
The LCD side cars are a huge plus point for me as well, and yet 3CX are basicaly saying to potential customers 'don't buy them', crazy eh ?.

Crazy or not, but everything is explained in http://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/ - UPDATED LINK


netswork said:
...Provisioning is easy and the customers prefer the LCD side car over the paper side car for Cisco SPA's and the silly paper side buttons on the yealink. And they support electronic hook switch for headsets.

Yealink phones also support sidecars and Yealink also provide LCD sidecars...
 
Polycoms are top notch but can be a real pain to work with when they are not working properly. If you want a high quality phone, with awesome call quality, but at a better price, try the Panasonic UT series phones.

In terms of 3CX/Polycom relationship, it isn't hatred...its business.
 
I'm going to put my .02 cents into this topic.

Along the lines of what KerryG, said; It's nothing personal, it's just business.

Users and resellers need to understand that certain hardware manufacturers are also software manufacturers with their own agendas. Among these are Aastra, Polycom, Cisco, etc. to name a few, a software company developing and selling SIP servers would have a difficult time having a working relationship with any company that is also competing with it in another department.

Yealink and Grandstream are examples of companies that don't compete with 3CX in other fronts. Having non-disclosures, non-compete and technology development exchanges with companies like these would work smoothly, but imagine the same process with an Aastra or a Polycom, a difficult task at best. And then working with a company like Cisco would be a mixed bag, it would depend on the product line and other factors, complicating things even further.

This is probably the reason that Digium eventually began manufacturing hardware, and look at what happened when Grandstream dropped their own proprietary PBX from the market, the relationship with 3CX grew stronger. I heard that Grandstream now runs 3CX for their own PBX.

These are things to consider when you choose 3CX as your PBX server software, if an organization was about to purchase 200 SIP phones, shouldn't they choose hardware manufacturers with a support future?
 
We are working with Snom phones and 3CX and this works very well.
This is also the package we normally sell to customers.
Snom 320 or 300.
We've also a nice application called ContactPad (see below) that works nice with snom phones, Outlook and various business software.
 
netswork said:
...Provisioning is easy and the customers prefer the LCD side car over the paper side car for Cisco SPA's and the silly paper side buttons on the yealink. And they support electronic hook switch for headsets.

SY said:
Yealink phones also support sidecars and Yealink also provide LCD sidecars...

Problem with the yealink is yes they have a digital side car but they also have paper labeled side buttons. If they made a phone that did not have the paper label side buttons, and instead used the digital side car only it would be much better. It makes no sense to have paper labeled side buttons and beside it a nice digital side car. Also the side car uses the port for a wireless headset. So if you use the side car you can not also use a headset from what I understand.

yealink provisioning is not easy, their support for United states English speaking customers is not good. Their Hooks switch adapter is not even known by plantronics to exist, and is not supported by plantronics.

Overall the phone is of lesser build quality than cisco SPA or Polycom. We would stick with cisco SPA if the SPA phones came with a digital side car. Its the same as with yealink...here is a nice color display phone and we are going to mount a side car with a paper label system.

This can possibly be resolved via the provisioning file but if your on a call on a yealink and someone intercoms your phone it forces your current call to be placed on hold. Your very limited to the customization of their color screen phone. It has extra features like broadcom voice that can not be disabled. Navigating the phone to get into things like the directory are also cumbersome.

We are selling an advanced IP phone system here...we need to be able to offer professional looking and professional functioning phones with great support availability.
 
I feel aastra and polycom make the most professional looking phones...and 3cx does not support either.

Going forward will 3cx no longer make provisioning templates for polycom? I have several quotes out to customers right now all with polycom phones. If 3cx is going to be moving away from polycom then our company has some important decisions to make.
 
active5 said:
... Users and resellers need to understand that certain hardware manufacturers are also software manufacturers with their own agendas. Among these are Aastra, Polycom, Cisco, etc. to name a few, a software company developing and selling SIP servers would have a difficult time having a working relationship with any company that is also competing with it in another department.

We can quote again, woo hoo ! :)

Seriously though, considering the above, I'd like to know what software you believe Polycom produces that is in direct competition to 3CX ?. I'm not aware of Polycom themselves producing either a physcial or software PBX that directly treads on 3CX's toes ? (I'm more than happy to be corrected), yes they have software that compliments a SIP PBX/server and their hardware but not a direct competitor ?.
 
Polycom phones are known for their above average quality, I myself own an IP 6000. My previous statement was in general and referenced various companies. Each of which have their own particular issues, it would take pages of responses to discuss all of them, their pros and cons. But currently deploying Polycom in bulk numbers can be problematic as discussed here:

http://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/ - UPDATED LINK

I don't see anything in the blog that suggests "hatred" toward Polycom, just plain facts and current deployment problems. Hopefully some of these can be corrected in the future.
 
netswork said:
This can possibly be resolved via the provisioning file but if your on a call on a yealink and someone intercoms your phone it forces your current call to be placed on hold. Your very limited to the customization of their color screen phone. It has extra features like broadcom voice that can not be disabled. Navigating the phone to get into things like the directory are also cumbersome.

We are selling an advanced IP phone system here...we need to be able to offer professional looking and professional functioning phones with great support availability.


You can disable "Intercom Barge" in the web interface or the 3CX provisioning file and your Yealink will no longer put a call on hold when someone uses the intercom. Yealink setup is simple and completely customizable using the provisioning file in 3CX. Like with any product it takes time to get used to it and learn the settings in the file. The Yealink web interface is simple compared to Cisco or Snom.
 
active5 said:
Polycom phones are known for their above average quality, I myself own an IP 6000. My previous statement was in general and referenced various companies. Each of which have their own particular issues, it would take pages of responses to discuss all of them, their pros and cons. But currently deploying Polycom in bulk numbers can be problematic as discussed here:

http://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/ - UPDATED LINK

I don't see anything in the blog that suggests "hatred" toward Polycom, just plain facts and current deployment problems. Hopefully some of these can be corrected in the future.

I think the new version of Provisioning Polyom phones (from UC 4.0.0 onwards) is much improved as is the web interface on each phone and the ability to backup/import end export configs on a per phone basis. This is all backed up with some of the most easily accessible and comprehensive documentation of any provider.

EG - http://supportdocs.polycom.com/Poly...nfiguration_Utility_User_Guide_UCS_v4_0_1.pdf

We are big Polycom fans and have deployed hundreds and hundreds of handsets using 3CX with some slight tweaks to the built in provisioning mechanism of 3CX. I appreciate the previous config file based method of deployment was trickier than some of the other vendors web based approach, but with a little know how you had some significantly powerful tools at your disposal and almost total control and customisation over almost every aspect of phone functionality. With the advent of UC 4.0 support in V11, hopefully Polycom will find more favour in the marketplace as access to this level of functionality is made more accessible.

I would also hope that this forces 3CX to reconsider the wording on its "Supported Hardware " page which currently states the following:

"Additional links with How to’s and guides for unsupported phones here. We do support but DO NOT RECOMMEND Polycom phones, here’s why"

Not quite hatred but certainly an over the top way of phrasing this!

Paul
 
It's very interesting to note that in the new blog article 'Complete Turn-Key IP PBX Solutions Webinar' when 3CX Channel Manager Brian Conway starts to speak the very first SIP phone brand that Brian Conway mentions at around 5:45 is Polycom, which of course 3CX ‘DO NOT RECOMMEND’ :roll:
 
Fatboy40 said:
It's very interesting to note that in the new blog article 'Complete Turn-Key IP PBX Solutions Webinar' when 3CX Channel Manager Brian Conway starts to speak the very first SIP phone brand that Brian Conway mentions at around 5:45 is Polycom, which of course 3CX ‘DO NOT RECOMMEND’ :roll:
Nothing "interesting"... Polycom phones are supported :)
I hope that UC 4.0.0 will change existing reality which is not perfect by many reasons :(
Question: I have IP450 on my desk. Does it support UC4.0.0? What is the best (easiest) procedure to upgrade it to new firmware?

Thanks
 
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