V20: 3CX Re-engineered

[N_G]

Taking control of your business communications has never been easier.​

More than 2 years in the making, on a journey that started nearly 20 years ago, today’s V20 Final release signals the future of 3CX - and heralds a new dawn for global business telephony. 3CX architecture has been fully re-designed from the ground up, deliv...

Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[D Bedford]

Great news and looking forward to some of the changes, thanks Nick!
Once thing does concern me though:
"Currently V20 is available on Linux only: A Windows installer will come at a later stage and will require an enterprise edition. We’ll upgrade any PRO editions running Windows to Enterprise for the duration of the subscription. More information to follow."

I accept I'm jumping the gun as you will provide 'more information to follow' but does this mean that in the future on-premises installs will require a 3CX Enterprise license to work on Windows, and therefore upon license renewal next time we will be unable to renew at Pro license level?

 

[Marc Fauser]

Same question here.
This forces more users to use the Linux version. Perhaps this is the intention.

 

[N_G]

You can use Windows, but you will need to pay for an enterprise license. I think our pricing is extremely reasonable.

 

[Alphabetic]

Hi Nick,

really interested in the reporting side.

Will the integration in to Grafana require a high level of knowlege in Gafana or will 3CX have some pre-configured/setup scripts to get that set up just like getting the 365 stuff set up?

 

[N_G]

Well more information to follow but yes you will need Grafana knowledge to make reports. Its not particularly hard to use though

 

[Marc Fauser]

The pricing is not the problem. But if you want to get rid of Windows, it would be easier to tell us now and we do the migration once.

 

[Marc Fauser]

BTW, I'm very happy about the new release. Thank you very much for such a great product.

 

[Soli]

about this: Global Office hours and holidays reconfiguration and use of Departments
if we have global hours and also different hours on DID is it still going to work if we update to version 20?
also if no global work is configured but in some DIDs we have office hours what will happen if we update?

 

[N_G]

@Marc Fauser Thank you for your nice words. No we dont want to get rid of Windows, but its a significant overhead in terms of additional testing, security measures and updating. And a Windows server license itself is not cheap either. And therefore i think its justified....

 

[D Bedford]

You can use Windows, but you will need to pay for an enterprise license. I think our pricing is extremely reasonable.

Thanks for the very fast clarification.

I find it baffling that you are tying what OS your software can run on to what license a customer buys. I have never seen this done before by a company. Whilst to you it may be 'inexpensive', I now have to go to our management team and justify why we're paying £250 more annually and upgrading our license. The only answer so far I have is 'because 3CX say so'.

I understand that we can move to using the Linux appliance but for a business who runs on Microsoft servers, we now have to ensure our staff can support Linux too, which is another consideration we must factor in when hiring. All of this is lost time and extra thought required simply because of a change we have no control over.

In another forum recently someone commented "3CX needs to remember to develop for the customers, not just for the developers."

 

[Evolute IT]

I now have to go to our management team and justify why we're paying £250 more annually and upgrading our license. The only answer so far I have is 'because 3CX say so'.

The answer is: "because you want to use Windows".

Windows is much more complex to deal with for 3CX. More testing, dev time, security stuff, install/update management, etc. It's already a luck that 3CX offers the same software on both platform. Try installing Asterisk or any other platform on a Windows system... it's basically impossible as most platforms are either Linux-based, or BSD-based.

I understand that we can move to using the Linux appliance but for a business who runs on Microsoft servers, we now have to ensure our staff can support Linux too, which is another consideration we must factor in when hiring. All of this is lost time and extra thought required simply because of a change we have no control over.

No need to support Linux if you use the supported 3CX deployments (like the ISO.) It manages the OS for you. Unless you experience big problems, you never need to SSH in. It's also much easier as 3CX can do upgrades and such automatically, whereas with Windows you need to uninstall/reinstall every time.

 

[Alphabetic]

@D Bedford

If you've got your Windows servers already then spinning up a debian VM wont go against your licensing as AFAIK containers are unlimited. Follow the guides to use the ISO and get one spun up, really easy the more you use it. I think where it might get more costly is for those who use 3rd party providers that require SQL etc to pull data.

 

[xmartek]

Congrats!!! looking forward to many deployments. Very interested in the new APIs and possibilities of new integrations. Thanks for making this happen.

 

[SweetAction]

Hi Nick,

really interested in the reporting side.

Will the integration in to Grafana require a high level of knowlege in Gafana or will 3CX have some pre-configured/setup scripts to get that set up just like getting the 365 stuff set up?

As a company that builds stuff in Grafana all day, I'm sure someone will build some dashboards and share them publicly.

Well more information to follow but yes you will need Grafana knowledge to make reports. Its not particularly hard to use though

Nick - we briefly spoke about this in person, but should 3CX wish to bundle dashboard/common reports, we're likely able to partner around this. You have my contact info.

 

[N_G]

@D Bedford

If you've got your Windows servers already then spinning up a debian VM wont go against your licensing as AFAIK containers are unlimited. Follow the guides to use the ISO and get one spun up, really easy the more you use it. I think where it might get more costly is for those who use 3rd party providers that require SQL etc to pull data.

Or instead dont be a cheapskate - its OK to pay for windows server license but not pay 3CX? Thats ridiculous.

 

[Marc Fauser]

Or instead dont be a cheapskate - its OK to pay for windows server license but not pay 3CX? Thats ridiculous.

So if I don't pay for Debian I don't need to pay for 3CX.

There are many possibilities to have cheap Windows licenses.
If you are a big company you can use Datacenter Edition where you can have unlimited Windows Server VMs for free.
If you don't activate your Windows Server, you have one for free. The license only says that the Server will reboot every hour after the 180 days trial. If it doesn't do it, it's not your fault.

For me the reason to switch to Debian with V20 will be that the 3CX updates are always faster for Linux.

 

[N_G]

Windows Datacenter Edition costs between 2000 and 4000 euro. Nothing wrong with that, its an enterprise product with its own advantages. And to run an enterprise product on it that runs your enterprise communications, you have to pay a little more too. 3CX still pretty much 200-300% cheaper compared to other enterprise PBXs. Crystal clear for me.

 

[SweetAction]

If you don't activate your Windows Server, you have one for free.

I 100% can tell you this is false.

Just because you bypass activation doesn't mean it's legal. There is no free version of Windows Server (not to be confused with HyperV Server).

I can steal the keys for a car off your belt, but that doesn't mean the car is mine / it's free.

 

[Marc Fauser]

Nope, but having unlimited VMs can make it cheap.
Most companies get RHEL or SLES and pay for it also and it's not cheaper than Windows.
I think the arguments are not good for charging more for Windows.
You can change the argumentation and charge more for Linux because it is significant overhead in terms of additional testing, security measures and updating compared to only developing for Windows.