My only complaint is that they don’t carry ivory jacks or faceplates; they only have “almond.”  Almond, ivory… what’s the difference.  The difference is they are different colors.  Almond is very close to white when compared to ivory.  So, if you have an ivory faceplate and you put in an almond jack insert, it looks white and stupid.  I think it’s either Home Depot’s way of saying ‘the stuff we sell is really for the home owner installing his own cable and jacks,’ or they don’t want you to buy their jack inserts and use them in faceplates that you have bought elsewhere.

Either way it’s annoying.  I think that the ivory colored faceplate thing should just go away.  I think that white looks better in every situation.  The only reason I ever use ivory is because the power outlets are already in ivory.

Advice for those selling:
The IVP8 and LVMU/GVPH systems, while very flexible in that you can get them to do some crazy stuff using token strings, are DOS based and can only be managed via a modem or a direct RS232 connection.  Modem is fine except that it’s not the modern form of Dial-Up-Networking.  It’s more like 1980s technology Hayes modem type connection.  RS232 is quickly fading into obsoletion, and it’s hard to find a computer with a serial port these days.  Therefore, if your customer is someone who will ever want to manage the thing themselves or use any advanced features like Unified Messaging or email notification, it’s not a good choice.

Who is this choice good for then?  I would say a good rule of thumb is this:  If you look around the office and most users are standing up doing stuff, like stocking shelves, working on cars in a shop or helping customers at a counter, this is a good sign that this customer might be satisfied with this product.  If you look around the office and most of the users are sitting at desks with computers in front of them, this is a good sign that there are users that will not be satisfied with the Stratagy DOS based systems.  A better choice for them would be the iES 16 or 32.

For buyers:
The IVP8, by default, integrates with the Toshiba phone system via DTMF.  That means that the phone system only communicates with the voice mail system usin DTMF tones (those beeps you hear when you dial your phone at your house)… beep boop bop beep…  That means that your callers could experience some wierd longish pauses when they call you and you don’t answer the phone, and that there could be a several second delay between when a caller leaves a message and the message light comes on on your phone.  If that concerns you, ask your salesperson for SMDI integration.  That is integration using a data connection.  It’s much faster… no wierd pauses.  LVMU and GVPH use SMDI integration by default.

If you want to manage the voice mail system yourself, the IVP8 and LVMU are cumbersome to do so.  You should talk to your salesperson about an iES system.  iES16 can connect to your company’s computer network so it’s much easier to adminster.  You just install the software on your PC, enter the IP address, username and password, and your in.  It’s fairly intuitive to change names and reset mailboxes etc.  The iES also can be configured to notify you of new message by email, as well as email you a wav file attachment of your messages.  It is much more technologically advanced that the IVP8/LVMU systems.  It is also more expensive.

That’s my advice, for whatever it’s worth.

G

If your are in Northern California, and you are considering purchasing a Toshiba System, please support the company I work for.

The company I work for presently is a dealer of Toshiba equipment, including their VoIP products.  We also do a lot of voice and data cabling and service a variety of communications technologies new and old.  That is my expertise, and so that is what I will mostly write about.

More to come.

G