Solved: UC500\UC300\BE3000 EOL - Page 2

crowe · ‎07-22-2013

https://communities.cisco.com/message/128811#128811

End-of-Life Announcement: Cisco Business Edition 3000, Unified Communications 500 Series, and Unified Communications 300 Series

Cisco® Business Edition 6000 is Cisco’s leading midmarket on-premises solution, providing right-priced, optimized collaboration for companies supporting from 25 to 1000 users, and partner-hosted collaboration powered by Cisco enabling customers to collaborate directly from the cloud. Together, these two solutions options are addressing the trends that midmarket companies are facing across the globe. With these trends in mind, Cisco is simplifying the small and midsize portfolio to the Business Edition 6000 and cloud collaboration.

Figure 1 Cisco Unified Communications and Collaboration Portfolio for Small and Midsize Businesses

To do this efficiently, we are reducing today’s portfolio offers with the end of life of the lower-end on-premises unified communications platforms, effective July 22, 2013. The Cisco Business Edition 3000, Unified Communications 500 Series, and Unified Communications 300 Series will be available for partners and customers until January 2014.

Please refer to Q&A below, and contact us with any questions.

Q&A

Can I continue selling the Cisco® Unified Communications 300 (UC300), Unified Communications 500 (UC500), and Business Edition 3000 (BE 3000)? Will they be supported?

Yes, these products will be available until January 2014. However, customers and partners are encouraged to deploy the BE 6000 or cloud-hosted collaboration moving forward. The end-of-sale announcement will describe support timelines.

What is the replacement product options?

Cisco Business Edition 6000 for up to 1000 users

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express on the Cisco Integrated Services Routers (ISR) for branch offices

For deployments of fewer than 25 users, we recommend the use of the Cisco SPA IP phone series in conjunction with a hosted service provider, and for deployments of fewer than 10 users, a third-party PBX service is recommended. The migration program, planned for availability on August 1, 2013, will offer support for migrating SPA phones to Cisco Unified IP Phones, which can be used on the BE 6000 and in cloud-hosted deployments.

Is there a migration plan for UC300, UC500 and BE 3000 customers? And will my existing SPA phones be included in the plan?

Planned for availability on August 1, existing customers on the UC300, UC500, and BE 3000 platforms will be able to migrate to the BE 6000 via the SMB Collaboration migration program. Support for migrating SPA phones to Cisco Unified IP Phones is also be included in the program.

Is Cisco leaving the sub-20 market?

No. Cisco has multiple solutions covering the sub-20 small business segment,

including branch, networking, security, and voice and conferencing endpoints

Also, for more information about the Cisco Small Business portfolio, visit www.cisco.com/go/smallbusiness

What is the support model for the BE 6000 compared to the UC300 and UC500?

The BE 6000 is supported by the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC); the UC300 and UC500 are supported via the Cisco Small Business Support Center.

How do I get updates on the BE 6000?

On the Cisco Support Community Business Edition 6000 page or on Cisco.com

Is the BE 6000 a real option for midsize customers?

Yes, the Cisco BE 6000 has recently expanded its midmarket support by adding a 25-user bundle to effectively support deployments with fewer users, reducing cost and simplifying the ordering experience, and adding support for Cisco Prime™ Collaboration. In addition, a new Express Collaboration Specialization focuses on enabling midmarket partners to have a successful business practice with the BE 6000. This new partner program is designed specifically for partners who serve the small and midsize customer segments, pulling together Cisco's flagship collaboration, unified communications, and cloud solutions into a single program. The Express Collaboration Specialization significantly reduces the requirements and cost for partners desiring to develop a Cisco Collaboration practice and resell the BE 6000.

How do I find more details about the Express Collaboration Specialization?

Visit Cisco Partner Central

End-of-Life/End-of-Sale Announcements:

Cisco Business Edition 3000

Cisco Unified Communications Manager 500

Cisco Unified Communications Manager 300

mark · ‎08-12-2013

Hi Guys,

I am interested to find out what options there are besides the BE6k. I am looking for something to sell to my SMB customers. I have seen diguim has a pretty cool system. What else is out there that is similar. BE6K way to expensive.

paolo bevilacqua · ‎08-13-2013

One can use ISR G2 to run the same CME software as the UC500, now at version 10.0.

You only "loose" the SPA phones and CCA. In my opinion neither are important at all, and all my customers do happily without, including UC500 customers. Not having based implementation on any of these, I'm able to migrate them to a superior platform anytime.

mark · ‎08-13-2013

Paolo,

That's not too bad, just loosing the spa phones, what about CUE? How does that come in to play?

pierrescotland · ‎08-13-2013

You also lose the licensing model from the UC500 and CCME licenses are a lot more expensive. CCME requires the base license and also a CCME Phone license (which is the same list price as a full CUCM license).

For CUE you would normally buy the Voice bundle which includes the Module for the ISR. (it's pretty much the same as UC500).

paolo bevilacqua · ‎08-13-2013

pierrescotland wrote:

You also lose the licensing model from the UC500 and CCME licenses are a lot more expensive. CCME requires the base license and also a CCME Phone license (which is the same list price as a full CUCM license).

About that it is useful to learn the technicalities of phone licensing, and the different purchase options available, including refurbished where it permits a better deal.

For CUE you would normally buy the Voice bundle which includes the Module for the ISR. (it's pretty much the same as UC500).

ISR G2 voice bundles do not include CUE module. It includes UC license and PVDM3s. There is also a CME bundle, that only adds a CME paper license on the top of the equivalent UC bundle.

pierrescotland · ‎08-13-2013

Hi Paolo,

sorry you are corerct on the voice bundle, I got so used to ordering UC500s that I mixed it up. I am sure distrubution will help with specing a system.

p.

TWalsh · ‎08-13-2013

Paolo,

Did you migrate your customers from the UC500 platform, or did you start them out on the ISR G2? What is the average phone user count of your customer base?

Loosing the SPA phones may not be important to you, but what about the small business owner who has an investment in a number of SPA phones and is now looking at loosing that investment no matter what platform he migrates to?

Loosing CCA may not be important to you, but what about all the SMB partners who who don't know CLI, and rely on CCA to configure their phone systems?

paolo bevilacqua · ‎08-13-2013

Did you migrate your customers from the UC500 platform, or did you start them out on the ISR G2? What is the average phone user count of your customer base?

I have a wide mix of customers, from 4 to 400 phones. UC500/ISR G1 and G2 serve them all very well, as appropriate for each situation.

Loosing the SPA phones may not be important to you, but what about the small business owner who has an investment in a number of SPA phones and is now looking at loosing that investment no matter what platform he migrates to?

I guess for these customer the options are to stay with current platform, that can likely be used for many more years, or dispose of the entry-level phones for something better.

Loosing CCA may not be important to you, but what about all the SMB partners who who don't know CLI, and rely on CCA to configure their phone systems?

I don't know, and I can't worry about others. I deliver professionaly, custom configured systems that exploit platform capabilites to the full extent and one inch more. CCA does not really go in that direction, so I've ignored it since the beginning.

On the ISR G1/2 there is some other GUI called CCP, that I don't use anyway for the same reasons mentioned above.

Anyway, for Cisco to enable CCA on ISR G2 is a click of the mouse and little marketing effort, ask them, not me, why that is not done.

rees · ‎08-14-2013

I Just found out about this yesterday after putting together a new quote for a customer.

To say that I am dissapointed would be an understatement.

The UC500 system has been an exelent system for us, and has helped us land, and keep many new customers for our main line of business, Managed Services.

I've started talking to Ingram about what's next, and it's going to be a pain if we want to continue with Cisco Voice.

The qualifications exclude one man shops as you need to certified people to sell the BE6000.

Training to get ECS certified is about 154 hours and an estimated $11,100.00 price tag

The BE6000 is only certified on one piece of hardware, a server with a $12,000 MSRP, licensing costs, etc.

The Beauty of the UC was you got it all in one package, and there was no other commercial solution that could touch the price point/features. The IP Office doesn't come close.

Navin has put me in touch with someone else at Cisco to see what's going to happen, but it looks pretty grim for the small shop who services the average client size of 25 employees. I REALLY hope Cisco doesn't short change to people who have invested years into developing this market.

mark · ‎08-14-2013

I am really upset because I have a bunch of customers that will need to buy a new system in a couple of years after they trusted me. Cisco just went back to enterprise, what they are good at. i already did all the homework and BE6K is too expensive, especially since they cannot use the spa phones. I myself will no longer sell anything Cisco, check out digium, their system is 1000 times better than the uc500. They also give comission if you sell the hosted product to the really small customers. So long Cisco.....

paolo bevilacqua · ‎08-16-2013

Rees Roberts wrote:

..

The qualifications exclude one man shops as you need to certified people to sell the BE6000.

Training to get ECS certified is about 154 hours and an estimated $11,100.00 price tag

I'm not very happy with the way Cisco certification (an industry in itself) works, however to be fair to them the certification cost is not high as you say.

The test exams costs like $200 and it is the only mandatory part. The cost that you mentioned is full training at price list in a Cisco Academy. That is not mandatory for the test and if one is studying online, etc. it can be greatly reduce or removed.

Being reasonable, $11,000 is pilot certification prices, not mid-level PBX "engineer"..

rees · ‎08-16-2013

Paolo,

Many people who sell the UC are only Select Certified, so the 11K applies. I've been doing Cisco products for 10 years at a decent level (security and switchng) with no certs, becuase I've never needed them. The ONLY reason I am select certified is because I have to be to sell the UC.

I't's my opinion that being reasonable, there are probably over 1000 partners who the 11K applies to.

Even still, let's say you have no certs, and don't take the training, you're still in the 1-2K range as opposed to the 125.00 for the select test that covers the product that you have been selling for years, and has all the features you need.

rees · ‎08-15-2013

I was thinking about this more last night, and this came to mind.

At one of the Cisco events I met a guy who is a "one man band" who was selling 5-6 UC500's a month. He developed his whole business about this. He's now got no options with Cisco.

The other beauty of the UC, was you didn't need a rack to deploy it. Sell it to a small office, mount it on thier back board and they now have a firewall, wireless, killer SMB PBX, and 8 port switch.

I'm sorry guys, but the more I think about this, the more I think you're blowing it.

Cisco has always been awesome about getting their partners input on products, you blew it on this one.

I would venture to bet, very few Select Certified people are aware of this, otherwise there would be WAY more posts in this forum.

JOSEPH GALEA · ‎08-15-2013

Hello,

We are neebees (last 8 months) to IP Telephony systems. We chose Cisco because of the support and reliability we have received in the past on F/Ws and Routers. We found UC540/UC560 pretty cool (F/W, Switch, CME, CUE, even an Autoattendant Script Editor). We are small so we must consider whether we should get certified as "Premier/Express Collaboration" so we call sell BE6000. Right now we just sold a UC560 (ordering in next week or so) against, AVAYA, Allworx and others. The sale includes 32 phones (SPA504 and SPA525G2) growing to more. I don't think I can turn back now. But, should I order different telephones (79xx) that have the same functionality but would work with BE6000 in the future?

Thanks,

Joe

Matt Waechter · ‎08-15-2013

I just sold a UC560 w/ 92 phones; after we found out about this we looked at our options. Keep the UC and change out the SPA514 phones to 79XX to be able to migrate them to a BE6000 in the future....might as well put in a CME or BE6000....additional $30000 for my client. Now we will be putting in a Toshiba or NEC. Cisco killed the SMB reseller's with this.

Oh yeah and I just sent back the full order of 92 phones, UC560, and 4 IP conference phones.