[Asterisk-biz] Polycom

[mattf]

We have also had a hard time keeping suppliers, we've had to buy them from 4
different vendors in the last year because the vendors can't sem to get
reliable supplies from Polycom.

About 10 months ago I talked extensively with Scott Wilson, the VP of sales
for Polycom VOIP phones, and he stated that they would love to fully support
Asterisk(even giving us our own engineer to talk to) if a vendor would
become a preferred Asterisk-related vendor that they could work through.
They hate dealing with end-user customers directly and that was the reason
we've had so many problems. In the end, I was never able to get any Polycom
reseller to agree to fully support Asterisk and I had to move on to other
things because this endeavor had already taken up too much of my time.
Because of that we only install Polycom phones in places where good
speakerphones are needed, otherwise we install Snom phones which have a much
better company support record with Asterisk.

All of the research and phone calls I made in this endeavor lead me to the
conclusion that Polycom makes more profit per phone when Cisco or Avaya
sells a phone(Cisco and Avaya license many Polycom technologies in their
speaker-phone-capable VOIP phones) than they would if they had to support
their own phones. That's why they don't really seem to care about selling
these phones, they compete directly with another stable revenue stream, and
becoming a bigger player in VOIP phones might put their Cisco and Avaya
contracts in danger. Of course I cannot prove this, but all of the
conversations I had with Polycom employees seemed to indicate this kind of
thinking there.

In the end these are wonderfully capable phones that are heavily
configurable and loaded with features and I plan on buying more in the
future, but they will never be primary phones on systems I install unless
they(or a reseller) start to offer Asterisk-end-user support, even if it's
paid.

MATT---





-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Rodan [mailto:asterisk at glitch.cc]
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 6:04 PM
To: 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Polycom


We have configured and re-distributed at least 50 of these units to our
customers and would be selling a lot more (hundreds) if we didn't have such
a hard time obtaining them from resellers. We're just a small company but
get more and more customers every day.

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Steve Totaro
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 12:58 PM
To: 'Chris Tooley'; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Polycom

I have sold many analog polycom sound stations and used an ATA.  Works
great.



-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Chris Tooley
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 12:44 PM
To: asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
Subject: [Asterisk-biz] Polycom

I'm looking for some missed opportunities for selling Polycom phones
because of the use of Asterisk.  I'm trying to get Polycom to provide
support form Asterisk stable branch and am willing to do the work. 
However, some actually missed opportunities will help with the
process.  No need to include end users name, just some unique
identifier.  We're not going to try to contact them, I just need
numbers of reasonable amounts for sales that could be gotten through
the certification process.

Thank you

Chris Tooley
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