Today has a strange optimism to it. Granted, my day hasn’t really started yet, but it doesn’t seem to bad so far.
Last night I spent some time researching PBX security and ITL standards. I’m starting to think that it’s really a bunch of people sitting around contemplating worse case scenarios without actually being in the trenches. That’s exactly what our industry needs. More people making suggestions that aren’t practical in daily life.
Frankly, I don’t have the time or money to disassemble a $400 piece of equipment (voiding the warranty) to see what chipsets it uses and then trying to reverse engineer any code it has burned on an eeprom. I’m trying to keep dial-tone at people’s desk.
They say I can go to the manufacturer to get info on exactly how the switch is programmed to handle user features and any possible back doors left behind, but let’s think about that for a minute.
1. Like they’re really going to come out and say they left a back door into the system.
2. Doesn’t that smack of social engineering?
3. If I’m really that good, shouldn’t I already know?
I know #3 is really a bitch cop-out, but it’s still there in the back of my mind.
I’m still not completely sold on Shoretel. There’s allot of cool things it can do, but I’m still left wondering if it’s the best solution for our business. I wasn’t part of the decision process and I feel like it was a bit hastey of a decision. It wasn’t that expensive for a short term fix, but I’m concerned it’s going to taint any future decisions when we look to replace our old digital PBX. I’m also concerned that there is a prevailing attitude that the switch is outdated.
As I see it, the old girl still has a few good years left in her and the fact that she’s capable of VoIP only adds to her longevity. The 100+K still on the books from her purchase doesn’t hurt my case either.
I strongly suspect that the biggest proponent of switching to Shoretel feels like we’re throwing good money after bad, but my customers are still making and receiving calls with an uptime of roughly 98%. I’m giving 2% to the time we brought the switch down to replace the god-switch in our electrical system.
