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[Discuss] shoretel makes me laugh and cry



On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 03:39:22PM -0400, Eric Chadbourne wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> At work I notice our phones are ShoreTel.  
> 
> I generally ignore phones as it is beyond my current knowledge and in the past I have been around trusted specialists.  We're a small shop and my mate who governs such things shows me a passage from the latest manual suggesting to not patch Windows servers in-between builds.  No security patches...  They say it may "degrade performance".  My job is to maintain a few Windows and Gnu/Linux servers.  So I say to him that I don't care what the manual says, unless they provide a channel to guide us on how to update in real time, then they are f'en clowns.  Note I have not learned of such a pre approved update channel as of yet.
> 
> How do banks and governments use this?  I'm not them but I like to try to be secure.  We do business overseas.
> 
> 1.  If you have to use their products how to you do it?  I asked one of their sales people about purchasing a pretty 1u box from their website (since they offer the idiotic advice about not updating) and they said don't, stick with my vm.  Oh my!  Their own sales people recommended not to purchase their hardware!  Is this company falling to crap?  I have just stumbled across them and wish I hadn't.
> 
> 2.  Who else can I suggest to my co-worker to look at if this company sucks?  I have a preference for open source but closed isn't a deal killer.
> 
> Maybe I misunderstand?  I know there's some phone geeks on the list.  Clue me in.

I don't know what ShoreTel is offering, but basically every ISP
and a large number of specialists offer SIP trunk service,
inbound lines, and many offer virtual PBX services.

If ShoreTel is sending you SIP, then you can fire up Asterisk on
a Linux box (or if you are large, OpenSER or Kamailio for SIP
routing with an Asterisk box for services) and armed with some
configuration information, you can swap their box out entirely.

If you don't want to touch anything except a pretty web
interface, order service from OnSIP or Phonebooth or
RingCentral or.... and after it's all set up, port over the
phone numbers.

-dsr-



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