[Asterisk-Users] Re: Polycom vs. Cisco IP Phones

[Greg Boehnlein]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Christopher Jacob wrote:

[Deleted]

> So, the moral of this story....
> 
> While Polycom may not offer configuration type support for asterisk, they
> stand by their hardware. With Cisco you have to shop around to find a decent
> deal, and who know how you're going to get support. I don't mind using this
> list / the wiki / google / etc. for configuration type questions. After all
> I don't expect Super Micro to help me get FC running on one of their
> motherboards...

Disclaimer: I don't represent Polycom, Cisco or Digium. I represent the 
community ;)

Two comments:

1. Based on VON and the contact I've had w/ Polycom's VP of Product 
Marketing there, and their ensuing contact w/ Digium, you can be assured 
that Polycom understands that their stance on the Asterisk community has 
to change and that they are taking steps to correct their previous 
behavior. I'm sure that there will be more "official" announcements about 
this as things develop, but Polycom is very very very interested in 
cutting through the corporate red-tape and getting Asterisk certified as 
an interoperable platform. They have a "self certification" program that 
vendors can use to flesh out issues and get on the approved list. Their 
interest is in ensuring that the products work well together and that 
their engineers have a clear line of communication with the vendors into 
any technical difficulties. Previous to VON, the right people were not in 
the mix. Now, that has been solved and there should be some momentum 
building.

2. Cisco supports phones that are under maintenance contract. I've never 
had an issue w/ cisco support on any product that had the requisite 
Smartnet on it. If your going to use Cisco, make sure that you get phones 
from a vendor that can provide the appropriate Smartnet. For three years, 
8x5 Next Business Day replacement, it cost me about $21 / phone. 7960's 
may be more difficult to get this on, but 7960G's shouldn't be a problem.

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