Samsung is ending the production and reselling of its phone systems (PBX)
Sometimes, stories come up in your news feed with such improbable coincidence that you would think that the timing is made up. But no, this is all too real. Two weeks ago, we published an article about the possibility that Mitel would buy Avaya and save it from possible second bankruptcy. The following day, Avaya publishes a press release announcing that it is RingCentral that would make a major investment – although it does put the IP Office PBX in jeopardy. Now today, we are learning that Samsung is announcing that it is ending the production and reselling of its phone systems (PBX).
Had we invented this story with this timing, nobody would have believed it. And yet…
After Avaya, Toshiba, select ShoreTel models and, of course, Nortel, here is another phone system manufacturer, in this case Samsung, announcing the end of life of its product line while leaving its customers behind.
At first glance, one would think that traditional premise-based phone systems, or PBX, are probably less expensive. This is the case only if you only consider the initial purchase cost of a PBX and compare it to recurring monthly fees of hosted IP telephony solutions.
Beyond the initial purchase PBX cost, one must consider a number of factors including the cost of operations, maintenance contracts, software maintenance services, and upgrade costs. It is for these reasons that the total cost of ownership of hosted IP telephony solutions will always be lower than traditional PBX systems like those from Samsung, Avaya, and others.
May you rest in peace Samsung PBX. Although there probably still are some spare parts out there, organizations using traditional premise-based PBX must start evaluating their migration strategies to hosted IP telephony solutions. We invite you to contact one of our senior advisors in order to have an honest discussion about hosted unified communications solutions.