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Stuck Between a Rock - and Microsoft

Started by ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 11 months ago

I recently made a very unpleasant discovery with my current phone system support agency. We purchased a VoIP phone system over a year ago, and are now discovering some hidden language rising to the surface… Have you had this experience? How did it make you feel? Read more about being stuck between a rock and Microsoft - and give advice on how ... Continue reading »

4 comments

  • Corey Smith

    11 months ago

    Dump Microsoft... nothing good ever came from Redmond anyway... well, almost nothing.
    reply
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart

    11 months ago

    Constructive advice, seeing as how all of our line of business applications run on Windows... I might have to pass on that one ;-)
    reply
  • techman2008

    11 months ago

    Ken, Not to preach but that's what you get for relying on MS for your mission critical telephony. There is no real reason you have to run your system on a Windows OS. I prefer the appliance approach where the updates are the responsibility of the vendor. And I am also a little paranoid about putting all my eggs in Microsoft's basket. A parallel to this is OS running on Printers and MFP's. MS tried to put windows on this device class several years ago and you see what has happened. MS will always focus on its core business first. When partners utilize its OS for other functions than what MS provided it for they are on their own. The fact that they are would prompt me to have a service agreement that would consider the changes to the core OS effecting the product are the vendors responsibility...because it is what they chose to run the product and therefore a essencial part of the product they sold you. Your solution is not a windows accessory, it needs windows to operate. It comes down to the vendors perspective on cost controls and selling you something at a point in time. The Windows OS is never fixed at point in time. In my mind opensource is far more logical in how they approach working with applications.
    - techman2008@msn.com
    reply
  • ChangeForge | Ken Stewart

    11 months ago

    techman2008, very good thoughts. I would share with you that out of all of my issues with phone systems and other line of business applications - Microsoft has actually been the stalwart platform.

    I come from days of mini-frame systems and Windows NT - which was horribly notorious for blue screening at random... My issue is more to the point of getting stuck in a situation where I do actually feel Microsoft, at this point in time, does understand the overall needs of a business and is not only stable but cost effective to run your SMB business applications upon.

    With that being said, I think I would completely agree that an appliance based model can be somewhat better - again depending upon partners. For instance, I have had stellar results with Barracuda Networks. It is a low cost solution which does exactly what it says it is going to do, and has regular updates of firmware and signature revisions.

    On the flip side, many of the "proprietary solutions" offered by vendors were either too protective and closed, or those higher end solutions, like a Cisco, were at that time more costly both from purchase price as well as ongoing support costs.

    I really liked your example of printers running MS OS's... that strikes a chord with me from the EFI standpoint. I've never been impressed with that b/c those vendors often don't support the OS - which should actually be part of the solution - not my problem to deal with. This ends up resorting to a finger-pointing contest - and I know we all enjoy this.

    PS - the telephony solution is a hybrid model where the phones and switches for pure telephony are appliance based and the VM and Call Management system is windows based. As it turns out, it is very robust in general with the possible exceptions of windows update and lightning strikes ;-)
    reply

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