The dates are set; the ESI 2008 Rollout is on April 24 and 25, 2008 in Dallas at the Embassy Suites Hotel Dallas – DFW Airport North at Outdoor World, which is the same location as last year. (It's a great hotel).
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I'll be at the Long Beach one on the 30th. But I'm hoping to get some quick info from here over the weekend, I have a couple of prospects in a holding pattern until the roll-out.
Since it's the day "of", I'll spill what I know. We've beta tested the new CS-50Lite and the CS-50(heavy) replacements for the S-Class. The Lite will be the direct replacement with basically the same specs, just with a modified version of the Comm server software. No more IVX! The "heavy" is more interesting, it's still a S-Class config 4x8x2 and takes the same cards, but also has a DLC82 card option, T1/PRI x 8 digital x 2 analog. Also the NSP port can be activated (for a fee) to be an IP "port card" (no addiitional IVC required)! It will do up to 12 IP "connections" and can combine ESI-Link and remote IP stations.
Blue hued backlit phones are also being rolled out. Cool, but I've never had anyone ask for one? Can be turned on or off. Also what they called a "crow" phone which will be the new phone across the board, I think. It simply solves issues with older phones where the LED's and display would not update properly when you were on long or poor cable runs. Some component is now being purchased from another manufacturer to solve the distance issues. We've used a lot of these in recent months with a big client!
"Genesis" software application (will probably stil be beta) is an online configuration/estimating application that still needs some work.
An "ECM" Bluetooth device that is still in beta, that allows you to connect a cellphone to the PBX via bluetooth and route incoming calls from the cell phone to any station. You can also dial out thru the cellphone (great when your T1 is down). Kinda cool but not a necessary item.
I've heard of some other things, but that is what I've seen with my own eyes.
ESI Link is being enhanced to allow for unified numbering plan between locations- no more cabinet numbers required. There is a also a higher bandwidth Codec being used for ESI-Link on the new CS50. It's the same codec as the Remote IP feature phones. The new software for the CS100 and up will support both codecs for ESI Link.
During the technical/development forum, I did not gat the chance to ask my question. Never would anyone here guess, but it was about a backlit phone option.
I have a remote phone at my house in my office and it is hard to see the display from the door. I just wondered about the backlight option, so I asked one of the ESI fellas, (can't remember who) about the backlight after the forum was over. Let me say, he had a darn good poker face, claimed ignorance and told me to send the suggestion in.
Five minutes later in his presentation what do you know we have backlit phones!! He called me out and said that it was the quickest suggestion to implementation I would see. I'll be swapping mine out in a few weeks.
Field Tech/Sales - Reliant Communications Austin, TX ESI Dealer and service Toshiba, Coral systems.
