This past month Bicom Systems had the opportunity to head back to Paris, France and attend IT Partners for another successful year! We collaborated on a booth with Fonia, one of our partners in France.
If you want to hear how last year’s conference went, take a look back on our blog where we recap Day 1 and Day 2.
A few days before the actual show, we had the opportunity to meet with resellers for other vendors. As always this was very interesting and eye-opening.
We all know the old saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Although that may seem logical enough, the saying ‘if it’s ‘old’, replace it’ does not. Replacing something just because it’s old doesn’t make sense and can be very frustrating. However, it has come to our attention that 3CX has added devices to their “End of Life” list. While these devices will still function, 3CX no longer offers support for them. If users make any changes to the settings requiring a reboot, the auto-provisioning will wipe the phone and there will be no support to fall back on.
What does this mean for 3CX resellers and end users?
We are under the understanding that it means 3CX users will now have to purchase new VoIP phones if they want to sell the latest version of PBX. If your customers do not have the latest VoIP phones (even though their older ones are working perfectly), they will not be able to get support from 3CX or update their PBX.
So get this. Your customer wants the latest 3CX version but their phones are 3 years old. They have 200 phones in the office. You upgrade their PBX to the latest version and BAM weird things “start happening”. I am sorry to tell you that the hardware that has ‘worked’ for years is no longer supported. You will have to tell your customer to buy all new devices.
Who is at fault?
Well, unfortunately, we are under the impression that resellers are taking all of the heat from their customers! Why? Because they were the ones who sold them the phones and told them to upgrade!
Now what?
Now your customer will need to replace all of their 200 perfectly functional phones. For reference, the average VoIP phone on the market could be priced at around $150. At that price, if you have 200 phones to replace, they are looking at a $30,000 bill.
Why are they doing this?
We don’t know! There is no logical reason behind this (that we know of). Cool and new features on a phone are reasons to upgrade, but there is no reason it should be required. When Apple releases new software updates, it doesn’t mean you need to go out and buy the latest iPhone. So if something is working fine for you, why change it?
Do you think this sounds right? Or fair? I wouldn’t want to “partner” with a vendor knowing that I will be the bad guy when my customer’s phones stop working…
But we want to know what you think! Since their announcement, at least a dozen 3CX partners have contacted us. Please confirm the above information or comment with your own experience. If you want to avoid a $30,000 surprise bill, let’s chat! Send our sales team an email at sales@bicomsystems.com to get started.
Need more information? Take a look at our ‘7 Concerns for 3CX Dealers’. Previous 3CX dealers and employees acknowledge their concerns and describe how they broke free from 3CX.