sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Samsung IDCS 500r2 vs. NEC Electra Elite IPK

We've received two proposals between the Samsung IDCS 500 release 2 and the NEC Electra Elite IPK. Since finding consumer information about phone systems is almost impossible unless you're talking to someone trying to sell you their system, I put it to this group. Speaking strictly phone system to phone system, which is better.

They both purport to offer the same features. Both their resellers are dogging the other system. Which system is going to last us 5-10 years and reliably give us the phone service we need. We have about 50 users, do about 10k minutes of long distance per month, have 6 800 numbers, and are looking at both systems for unified messaging.

Thanks to everyone in advance,
Erik

What system do you currently have? Did you look at any other systems besides these 2? All systems more or less offer the same features, so the big differences are in the installation companies. REFERENCES REFERENCES REFERENCES. Any salesman can dazzle you with bull$hit, have em backup their word.


[This message has been edited by OhioTelecom (edited June 23, 2005).]

We have an Inter-Tel system and aren't too happy with the service and their bid was double the others. All in all, we've recieved 8 proposals, including an Avaya, Nortel, ESI and the above two. We've checked the references for both of these systems and resellers as provided by THE resellers. Of course they provided happy references, so that's why I turned to this message board to try and get some differentiation in the phone systems by themselves.

As OhioT stated most systems are good but the real difference is with the installation and the support they provide
after the installation.
Personally I like the NEC.
Would you please complete your profile for us.

Ok, profile completed. Could I ask why you prefer the NEC? Thanks!

I would first ask what do you do? What line service are you going to use? Application is everything..cost is almost irrelevant on a capital expediture such as the heart and soul of your company..especially with loan rates today. Voicemail, unified messenging ACD? All things we need to know.

This could take a while. We have multiple entities, at least 2 of which have their own auto-attendant greeting. Eventually, we are planning on having a full-time receptionist, and to minimize the amount of calls going to that position, would need DID. We're interested in unified messaging in the future, but not necessarily at this time. Pretty much every user needs access to the same features. Voicemail, local and long-distance, and conference capability. Currently we have a dedicated T1 for long distance, and 8 copper lines for local. We're planning on getting rid of that in favor of a PRI/T1.

Do you have outside sales people? Is voicemail traffic going to be high? Conferencing, do you need a conference bridge so that 10+ people can get on? Don't be confused on this one. A bridge is FAR superior to add-on conferencing...especially with a PRI.



[This message has been edited by Coral Tech (edited June 23, 2005).]

That is a pretty vanilla application. Either system as well as most others will do that. Administration of each system might be the only differentiator. The big choice is the provider. I have to tell though that negative selling rarely works. I picked up 2 medium size sales today because the competitions sales reps ran down my product and company. When asked about the competition we say they are fine people and the product is good but we are superior for the following reasons... Amazing how that appeals to someone looking for a product that they don't buy everyday and are looking for someone to provide a service that they can trust. I would run off any sales rep that dogs a competitor.

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Business Phone Systems

Unfortunately, from the 4 local providers that we've gotten quotes from, all have dogged the Samsung system, and use the nice sales tactic ("that system is great, but ours is better...") for the other systems. Because of that, we're having a difficult time gauging the quality of the samsung system. We like the NEC system as well, and the NEC and the Samsung came together at a similar price point.

To answer Coral Tech's question, both systems are quoted as 8 ports of VM, which is more than enough.