atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Vodavi Telephones & Systems STS is officially discontinued

When they announced the price increase I started exploring other products. I know I'm not going to hurt their bottom line much, but I sure do like the better support I'm getting.

Yep, you are correct justbill. When you called Vodavi tech support if needed it was nice to talk to a Tech whom had probably been on the other side as a Installer.I knew the Techs by first name and they knew me as well.No run around and no body tried to impress (BS) anybody just facts. Now that was when it was VODAVI. I loved their monthly Tech
bulletin they sent out and it keep you in the loop, no matter how small a dealer you were.

Derrick, I was told by my distributor that STSe sales were 10-1 over SBX a few months back. I really don't think they are going by the numbers here, which baffles me. The MBX is surely going to take over for the XTS at some point, I just hope they give us a little more notice.

The ONLY reason I haven't tried selling the SBX before now is simple. There's no way I'm going to sell a product that has problems at the rate the SBX has had, atleast until 3.5 came out. You can look back at this tech support forum to see the problems I am referring to. It seems that the simplest of features such as off-net forwarding, are still a problem with even the latest software. I still have a hard time understanding why they can't make an 8 port vm either. 4 ports isn't sufficient for a system that may potentially have 12+ lines answered by auto attendant. These are just a couple of reasons I haven't switched.

"SBX is an upgrade to the STSe simply for voip" ?
Really??? If they wanted to make an STS voip card, I'm sure something could have been engineered. Outside of voip, which in my area, is implemented maybe 5% of the time, the SBX isn't nearly the system STSe is in my humble opinion.

I have a feeling that within 10 years, the phone man will be extinct, or atleast religated to a basic cable puller. This is assuming we aren't completely wireless by then. I sure wish that when I graduated high school they had more than 3 computers in the "computer lab". Maybe then I would have a little more interest and knowlege about networking in general. As far as I'm concerned, voip can KMA ! I'll take a tried and true pots line any day.

Figures.....I have one being delivered today to replace a bad KSU at a customer site.

I will say, than the DSX is a good option that we have moved toward. The support feels much like Vodavi was years ago. That is what I miss most, it was like calling a friend when you needed help.

Its the nature of the game boys. Remember how Mitel completly bought out Trillium just so they could kill it because they were losing pbx line sales to their own key system?

That's why I, a loyal Mitel/Trillium dealer became a Vodavi dealer. I am too old to start looking around again so I plan to stick it out with Vertical until I can't hold a punch down tool or don't have to, whichever comes first.

We still have some Panther II's out there.

Me too. I dabble in DSX and Xblue, but desperately want Vertical to do right by us old Vodavi dealers.

Dave, as much as I share in your pain, Vertical kicked the Vodavi dealer base to the curb years ago. I think it was more of a house-cleaning. They bought the dealers' markets (virtually) for investment purposes. By showing a huge alliance of dedicated dealers, they looked valuable to investors.

These investors never had to know how these dealers were being treated like red-headed step children. All that mattered was quantity, and there was plenty of it.

According to V-Connect, the official word is that LG-Ericsson is discontinuing the production of the STS product. So we can't complain to Vertical on this one.

Perhaps the only choice I may have in the near future is to simply refuse to sell any phones that may be made in China. That my friends, will be my final stand.

Ok... So if I have a potential customer who has 8 lines, and 24 ext.'s and they need the auto attendant to route calls, which system am I supposed to propose? The SBX obviously won't suffice with only 4 vm ports. The Wave is going to be over-priced. I know nothing about the MBX and it's capabilities... I'm at a loss here. The STS would be a great fit, but it's gone now. The XTS is too large to fit the price range as well. I keep hearing an 8 port for the SBX is coming, but until it does why cut the STS line? I just don't get it. So seriously, which system would I propose?