Mitel 5000, how long is left?

[NTEDave]

Hello

Anyone have an opinion or has heard anything on the road map for the 5000/250??

It seems to have gotten a bit quiet release wise other than PRs and i'm wondering if Mitel are going to move an Aastra product into the 5000s role as the product has been out for quite a while now.

If Mitel are to keep the 5000 going I would like quite a big refresh or even a completely new product based on the 5000 core.

CXi type controller with built in PoE ports.
ALL of the ports on the front presented on RJ45 sockets individually.
A Virtual Option.
Skip the PEC and the PS-1, just give the controller a CPU that beefy enough to run 250 IP Phones from the start. (Avaya do it on the IP500 for 400 IP Phones from a very low price point so why can't Mitel??)
Better Diagnostics, Clearer Logs, An ISDN2 lost sync, your SIP Trunk password is wrong, that sort of thing.
Built In Call Recording, not just ad hoc.
Multi Node Hotdesking.
BRI cards that last more than a couple of years.
Phone Manager server built in to the 5000 so there's no need to spec or worse still, use an existing server the customer has.

Anyone care to comment or have any more for the wish list??

Cheers

Dave

[akuhn]

Great questions. We still have ours. Not going anywhere soon.

[NTEDave]

We are still quoting them and selling them! It's still a market leading product in my opinion but there's a few areas (as above) I believe it could improve.

I've thought of another one as well, the upgrades are clunky, i'd like to be able to do it it one hit, license, database conversion and everything.

[Hershel]

Just my opinion but I don't see Mitel replacing the 5000 with an Aastra product.  I think they will continue to offer it till the Cloud market hits a point where the premised based PBX is no longer viable.

Love the list, I have added my own personal thoughts

Anyone have an opinion or has heard anything on the road map for the 5000/250??

It seems to have gotten a bit quiet release wise other than PRs and i'm wondering if Mitel are going to move an Aastra product into the 5000s role as the product has been out for quite a while now.

I thought that they move to calling it the MiVoice Office 250 was that they were planning on increasing its capacity to 400.  Assuming this is the case for v7 it might result in a needed hardware component much like the RAM increase with v9 on the 3300 (pre MCD)


CXi type controller with built in PoE ports.
Like it but is it needed with the low cost of PoE switches? 

A Virtual Option.
I suspect this will never happen as Mitel will want to continue to have a major differentiation point from MCD

Phone Manager server built in to the 5000 so there's no need to spec or worse still, use an existing server the customer has.
Love this!!!  I also think OEMing phone manager is a good sign that the 5000 isnt on the way out.

[sarond]

It may be different in Australia but I believe the MiVo 250 is suited to the <30 handsets where as they push the MCD or Aastra A400 for >30.

So the Aastra is competing with the MCD more so than the MiVo 250.

With Mitel in our company we would normally sell M5000 for small business, MCD for Medium/Large and Aastra A470 for hospitality.

[mitelengineeruk]

I would agree with sarond on this one, with the OEM for Phone Manager announced I think there is a lot more to come on this and I would probably find that most resources are on this currently.  With release of next version for the system I would think mid this year sometime.

In comparison to another product we do and others I have done in the past, the Mitel 5000 pretty much fits the bill for the SME/SMB market and is so good to work on and the feature set is great and covers 99% of customer requirements.

Multi node hot desking is a must for me though plus also increasing the amount of IP phones especially with a PEC and PS-1

[619Tech]

Coming from the Inter-Tel side of things, I'm hoping for some longevity for the HX. I was happy that Mitel decided to keep the 5000 (HX) around, instead of kicking it to the curb. It's only become better with the incorporation of new (Mitel) features. I think it's a highly flexible & feature filled system, that I actually enjoy working on.

[NTEDave]

Love the comments and agree with them all.

By virtualisation I think I was trying to say a server based solution which would grow larger than the hardware 250 due to more RAM and a faster CPU.

Axxess went up to 1024 extns (wasn't it??) with a CPS so we know the software will do it!

I'd REALLY like them to move away from the PEC and PS-1, bump the CPU and RAM in the base cabinet up and maybe recoup the loss of income from the hardware with some licensing somewhere.

[Tech Electronics]

Who remembers the 7000? That system was going to crush the 3300 before Mitel bought them out and dropped it off the list of products. They could still bring that system back since they own the right to it, but I doubt it would happen.

[acejavelin]

I was always under the impression the 7000 was pretty much a dead product before Mitel every bought Inter-Tel...

[Tech Electronics]

Acejavelin,

No, a few were actually sold and installed prior to Mitel buying out Inter-Tel, but since it came out right before the deal was closed there wasn't much talk of it. The fact that it just came out and it was totally SIP, ie it didn't support traditional Inter-Tel or Mitel phones, based meant that Mitel didn't really have a reason to support it once they took over ownership of the product; as there were very few customers using it. Also the fact that it would scale up to 2500 users at one site meant that it would be a competing product to the 3300 and since it was totally SIP based they would lose revenue with its ability to Support Integration with 3rd party products easily. It also had built-in presence management and several other features that required a separate server on the 3300 platform, meaning they had to make a choice on which platform they would have to stand behind and support going forward. I think they made the right choice staying with the 3300 and not alienating their large customer base, but I wished they would have kept the 7000 because it was a really nice product but you do get to see some of its features in the MAS now.

Thanks,

TE