[Asterisk-Users] Polycom IP500 vs Cisco 7940

[Matt G]

Hi Everyone,

I've been asked to determine which phones our organization should go 
with. And I've narrowed it down to the Polycom IP500 or the Cisco 7940.

 From my travels through google, it's hard to find a definitive 
comparison of the two phones. So I thought I would ask the people that 
have probably used both.

 From what I can tell, the only major benefit the Cisco has over the 
Polycom is
* 24 ring tones
* XML support
* Help Button
* Larger Screen (is this true? 2x24 vs the 160x80 on the polycom)

Another question that came up while discussing the Cisco phones was if 
the 24 ring tones are 'assignable' (ie, user calls in with callerid 
saying 'sales' and it rings a certain way, if they call in with callerid 
saying 'tech support' it rings something else). I couldn't find any 
information on this on google, so if anyone has the answer to this that 
would be great.

Other than that, the polycom seems to have all the features we want, and 
according to the wiki works quite well with asterisk and has many 
features enabled that seem pretty interesting (MWI, etc). The Cisco's on 
the other hand seem less straightforward to configure and not as much 
talk on the wiki, nor support.

The price difference is quite significant and we don't want to make the 
wrong decision here.

Could you guys help us out?

Thanks,
Matt @ Experthost.com