atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General Telecom News Home Depot switching to Cisco from Avaya

All the Local Home Depot's in my area seem to be switching to Cisco phones, I haven't had a close look to see if its connected to a true call manager or just sip to asterisk...

This has to be a big Hit to Avaya, wonder what went wrong with the Avaya deal?

Home depot probably has someone making the decision that is getting a BIG kickback from Cisco.

Closeout on Avaya phones in Aisle 127!

If it's anything like what Cisco does here, Home Depot probably had no choice. Cisco basically gives away the phone system when they sell network solutions. We don't even come close, with the steepest discounts, to what Cisco prices their voice equipment.

We just wait, because, within two years, the people HATE the Cisco systems and eventually come back asking for a solution that actually works. So, I think Avaya, initially, will feel the hit, but I wouldn't be surprised if, down the road, they come back.

Rcaman

I think you hit the nail on the head Rcaman,

A local regional bank around here drank the Cisco Kool-Aid a couple of years ago and took out all their ole Avaya Legend/Magix systems and went Cisco.
A couple of months ago,...... they took out the Cisco and went back with Avaya IP Office.

Of course I don't know about all the companies that have gone Cisco around the Pittsburgh area, but I know that every one that I know of that did switch is either so miserable and want the Cisco out or have had the systems replaced. I had one, rather large medical supply company, not only rip out the phone system, but were so upset, they removed every piece of Cisco network equipment and replaced it with HP. I asked the administrator what the ballpark cost, corporate wise, was to do that and he said in the millions of dollars. They did purchase an ESI IP solution from us, but they had us make it completely separate from their network. They paid us to, basically, install another network system for the IP telephones.

I came to really like the HP switches. GUI and actually quite user friendly.

Rcaman

I agree ....someone is getting paid!

Cisco does heavily discount their hardware when it comes to getting big deals, there's not much secret there. We've all said it comes down to the installer. If the installer/partner does a good job designing and installing the solution, it'll be there for a long time. The partner can make or break the solution. I imagine Home Depot has a good-sized enterprise-class Call Manager cluster centrally supporting all of the stores, and then SRST to support the stores if they lose their WAN connectivity, and probably some minimal local trunking. As long as the system is built right, they'll be on Cisco for some time.

Justin

I was at the local Graybar today and noticed they had Cisco phones. I asked an employee how he liked them and he said the call quality was good, but it was more difficult to use and the system has been down 3 times since it was installed. The old system (a Comdial I believe) never went down.

I have no idea, Do you buy from home depot? I didn't think anyone still did

OK Damn, I was in there yesterday, guilty

Me toooooooo
Still love Home Depot.

Are you kidding? My family knows it's "My Favorite Toy Store."

Rcaman

I don't buy any voice/data stuff there but I am guilty of looking at the tool section with my eyes glazed over

Exactly what I was thinking.

The Home Depot's around me still have the wall jacks in the isles but no telephones on them. It seems that as the phones break the general manager doesn't want to spend the money to replace them.

I guess if you don't have the staff on the floor there is no need to have telephones for them to answer.

Not sure if the Canadian Home Depots are different from the US ones for telecom suppliers?

The Home Depot stores around here also have the jacks with missing phones throughout the store. I think they gave up on that idea, in favor of using wireless phones.

Justin

I've seen them using iPhones at both HD and Lowe's.

Same thing going on at Graybar over here, and same comment from the guy behind the counter.

My local Home Depot has had Cisco for a while.

Yeah...my Graybar had Mitel phones (the Cleveland branch moved to a new location 2 or 3 years ago) and last time I was there I noticed they now have Cisco phones.

Crap
In
Service
Cause
Obtuse buyers don't know any better

Can
I
Still
Call
Out?

The answer is yes. I take care of 100+ Cisco phones at work.

home depot near my house opened in 2005 and had a digital nortel system (never saw what was running in back) but in front was your basic melange of norstar phones. In 2007 they ripped the entire thing out and put in an avaya IP system. It was a surprise to see such a new system pulled.

I'm not sure about in desk areas, but the important staff all have something called a First Phone a Motorola device WiFi IP data & 4 antenna diversity for voice. As of 2 years ago the Avaya servers were still in operation. Whatever they are doing on the desks it goes IP immediately and the Avaya devices on the network in the rear were providing local pots connectivity. 1st's were rolled out starting in 2010 for the trial sites, and finally rolled into the last areas of the store this summer.

I used to be employed by Avaya. We put systems in all the Home Depots, including the wire. Then, we just had maintenance/upgrades on the system, and wiring was sent to BlackBox. Last I heard, BlackBox was doing a lot of the work. Just because you see Cisco phones doesn't mean that Avaya isn't in play somewhere. I've put in several Avaya sip servers with Cisco ip phones working off them. However, what has been stated is true, Cisco bascially gives the stuff away with the networking deals. I did do a site survey at two Home Depots shortly before the Cisco stuff was rolled out. If I remember correctly, there was really no local hardware other then a Cisco router/switch going in, control was in the cloud located elsewhere.

Interesting. I just had a conversation with a huge law firm yesterday and the person I spoke with said, "Well, if Avaya is number one, then why is your business so slow?" I took huge offense to that. Avaya IS number one and Cisco is number four (NEC is number two). I agree that some super-secret handshake under the table had to happen for this to take place.

Tim,

Number one and number four, based on what criteria? Also, who do they list as number three? Just curious.

Rick

top three is discussed a lot, here are the top three most popular forums on the most popular site on the internet.
1- Avaya
2- Nortel
3- Toshiba

Of course this isn't the industry standard especially since Avaya and Nortel are one in the same now, but it certainly shouldn't be discounted...

As the Captain said to "Maverick" in "Top Gun"....GOD help us all!

Rcaman

How do you rate companies based on how much they are talked about?

Any one of those or others might be getting a lot of talk because they are so bad or they require a ton of support. None of which is good

Avaya phones ripped out of our Canadian HD and replaced wit avaya

Do you mean Avaya phones ripped out and replaced with Cisco

Anymore it's all about Unified Communications, that is routing, switching, voice, wireless. See "one of these things is not like the other"....yep, basically driving the stake of voice to be destined to be managed by IT.

While I completely believe their business model of requiring you to buy the hardware, software, and then licenses on top of that is a bunch of crap, people continue to buy into it.

Ours just went from Comdial to AVAYA IP Office

Did I say that?? Must have been tired! yes, Avaya ripped out and Cisco put in its place. I want TRAINING in some kind of PBX system, but not having any luck due to the high cost. Cost to live here is considerable and my income disapears into living expenses.

I've only dealt with Cisco phone systems including call managers. We didn't have any issues with them even in Iraq. Phones/CM always worked great. I haven't dealt with them in a while but I know our local government uses nothing but Cisco phones and CM.

What makes Avaya better?

It's not Cisco.

Rcaman

Quality, technology, support, etc, etc, etc