atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems NEC Telephones & Systems NEC End of Sale announcement

NEC made the announcement yesterday that they will no longer be selling on premise system after 12/31/24. Software and hardware support will end 3/31/25.
The cloud service is not affected.
I'm glad to be coming up on retirement, I am not a fan of the cloud!!!!!

Another one bits the dust.

Too much reocurring revenue in cloud systems for these companies to care about a 1 time sale

Thanks for letting us know - is there an online press release or link where this announcement is posted?

We received notice via email

That's a shame. One of the last small KSU's available for customers who do not want a cloud system.

I never worked much on NEC, but I did have an IT client that I did best-effort support on an NEC Aspire for. I was impressed with how flexible the voicemail system was, even on a smaller system. The client had some unique needs. They had an AA that played a unique announcement for any ZIP code in the St. Louis area. That's a lot of mailboxes. INmail was able to do it. When they moved to a cloud hosted system the vendor attempted but ultimately couldn't make it happen on the new system. In the end we ended up hanging the NEC off of the cloud system with an ATA in a hunt group.

Yep, was quite a shock considering how much of premise based systems they actually control. I'm sure a lot of these systems will be around 10 years from now. They just work. If anything, they are honoring their 5 year commitment which pushes it past that date. 9100's with legacy licenses are going to be around with parts forever. I'm already looking into another system. I really hate they didn't give a lot of notice. BTW Japan will still have these systems.

We have heard the same thing in OZ!

I wonder, are there currently any new TDM KSUs or PBXs being manufactured and sold these days? When searching recently I didn't come up with any.
Maybe everything is VoIP. I know Grandstream used to have a device with 4 FXO ports. That was ideal for a small installation converting to VoIP but retaining analog CO lines.

Also, in the past some customers owned their phone system, and only pay monthly for CO lines, and on site system service on a time and material basis. Maybe that's no longer an option.

In the past, I have used Grandstream and Yeastar IP systems for analog lines and extensions.... Still do. However, for the price of a single analog line, I can give a customer 5 or 10 VoIP ports. Grandstream has an 8 FXO/FXS port system UCM6308, or 6304 or 6302 that have 8,4, or 2 sets of ports, but their VoIP phones sell at price points similar to those digital phones on PBX's. Or, skip the wires and use WiFi as in a Grandstream GRP2615 or 16 and all you need is an electrical outlet.

I wonder, has Mitel exited the digital system market yet? A Mivoice office 250 and 5300 series phones might work in a small office. And, A SEARCH ENGINE LIKE DUCK DUCK GO works better than (hack,spit) Google for actually getting results of what you ask for in digital PBX systems.

Carl

The MiVoice Office 250 / Mitel 5000 is in its final months of sale, I believe.

I believe you can still order digital cards for IP Office, but I believe the digital phones themselves are discontinued. Or at least the 1400 series. Not sure about 9500. IPO server edition is the way forward though, with the 500 V2 serving only as a gateway. I’d imagine this is impractical for small businesses.

But, to Keyset’s point I don’t believe there is a purely TDM system left. Maybe XBlue if you count them.

I believe ESI and Vertical still have digital premise based systems.

NEC sold out to intermedia, just like Avaya and Mitel sold out to ringcentral. we will never push a product for a company that has no problem selling against us and stealing our customers.


Tadiran has a nice cloud or premise based system, its full IP and they don't sell to the public

I think Tadiran still sells the IPX digital systems as well?

Interesting.

ESI's website makes it look like their current products are 100% IP. But sure enough Tadiran's website says they still sell Coral. It's definitely not front and center, but it's there.

But what the heck is going on with Vertical? On their products page they list 8x8, RingCentral, and Mitel products? What happened? I do see IP Wave mentioned. I haven't worked on a Wave since 2017, but it certainly supported Vertical, Vodavi, and Comdial phones. So assuming they are still selling digital cards for it I guess that's an option too.

NEC using Intermedia is kind of a shame. I worked for a partner and we had a big love/hate relationship with Intermedia.

Avaya has communicated their intention to keep the IP500 going along with the release of their R12 software (R12 info here). There is a reference to a 500v2b chassis and I think we can assume digital phones will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future - there are certainly no allusions to EOL for the digital stuff.

Mitel MiVoice Office 250 was end of sale January 2022. Still under tech support for another couple years

Is this all on premises systems or just what were known as KTS systems??

Does anyone have the email?

yes they sent out an email April 15th.

Interesting that's about it - probably no more new TDM systems. Also re: XBlue, a company I worked for previously that specialized in Iwatsu systems sold a small system with the Iwatsu name on it. Don't recall the model, but it was actually an XBlue system, I believe it could only be programmed from the attendant phone with various menus on the screen, don't think there was a serial interface. While there's probably still a fair amount of Iwatsu systems out there, I believe phone and other hardware ceased production in 2008 or 2009, after a tsunami is said to have damaged a main factory enough to shut it down.

And re: NEC - I recall working on NEC Patrician phones and KSUs in the late 1970s. They, like the Iwatsu key systems of the era, didn't use the standard 25 pair color code with their phones.

And re: Mitel - I heard they acquired Unify, which is what Siemens telecom became.

Not good news for us.

I've heard that E-Metrotel is maybe offering a solution that supports NEC hardware ongoing although I have not heard great things about the company!

When NEC made the announcement back in April, we were told support would end 3/31/26, since this has been changed to 3/31/30 for the SV-9100 with the CP20's and SL2100 systems. End of hardware sales hasn't changed which is 12/31/24.

I suspect that new sales have already tanked and if thy are selling anything new it's really low. Good to see that the support has been extended out to the end of 2030 though I suspect that this will be slowly brought forward .