with all due respect to tampasteve, I'd have to disagree. The statement that ALL of the major manufacturers are moving very quickly to being all IP systems is inaccurate. Look across almost any product line of Avaya, Toshiba, NEC, Samsung, ESI, Nortel, Vertical, etc, etc, and you will find that they ARE in fact offering IP products, but most offer systems that are "converged" or "hybrids" as they are called where the stations and trunking can be traditional or of the VoIP variety. The only companies that are putting all of their eggs in the IP basket are the startups that are counting on customer recognition of the VoIP acronym without really knowing what it will do for them.
It's similar to the automobile market, each manufacturer is offering a hybrid because of the hype behind "green" vehicles and obviously the fuel issues, but are they offering ONLY hybrids? Not in our lifetime!
Few digital systems will be on the market in 5 years? I doubt that, although it may happen, but the digital system will live on due to the legacy equipment saturating the market, and that there still isn't a good argument that is reasonable as to why IP is any better than digital.
I definitely would be looking for a system and a manufacturer that has a strong digital and VoIP presence, but to limit my purchase to IP? Like Hertz says, not exactly!
Taking your stance, if you or your company is selling your customers anything else beside pure IP based phone systems, you are doing them a disservice and scamming them out of their money, right?
