DVDs in the box

[sgreensp]

Hello market trial participants,

Would like to get your feedback regarding the software DVD that will ship in the box with a BE6000 (not with the trial units that you received from me, as those were 'home built').

Do you prefer the DVD or do you prefer going to the web to download software? There are pro's and con's from the manufacturing side, but we want to hear your thoughts.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

[Fred Nielsen (ePlus)]

Speaking for our practice, I think the increased access to install\upgrade media via download has been welcomed and is far and away the preferred method everyone uses when they can.

That being said, we still encounter sufficient of examples where either the download process is broken (like an entitlement issue that seems to take weeks to fix) or not viable (perhaps due to low/no bandwidth at a given location).  In those cases, having physical media as a fallback option is still useful. Also, for some customers being able to handoff physical media to them is still more reassuring then handing them a website or a bunch of ISOs/OVAs.

If you do decide to go with a "box set", please do everything possible to keep it concise.  It wasn't that long ago that a UC server would arrive accompanied by a dozen or more discs (of which, usually only 1 or 2 were actually necessary).  We still find drawers stuffed full of them from time to time.

The logistics/bandwidth issues above can nearly always be worked around, but the other issues with the process still abound.  Fix those for BE6K and my answer might change

[Jon Nelson]

I would agree that media should be included, but I think it should be provided on a flash drive vs. DVD. My primary reason for this is that the 220's don't have DVD drives, so it wouldn't do much good to include the media on DVD. Having it available on a flash drive would allow our customers to easily install it back to the server or back it up to their own respository.

I would also concur with Fred's statement on consistency. A single flash drive would reduce the amount coasters floating around the office and also decreasing the liklihood of one piece of media being missed.

Thanks,

Jon

[daaron501]

My preference here is having the option, but not to make mandatory one way or the other. Perhaps provide an option on purchase to include media or provide a link, and be sure to ask per order instead of just shipping with/without.

Having the download is a good backup source in case the media gets misplaced or damaged. It also reduces the amount of physical media required since we can upload it to a data store and install much faster from that than DVD.

Having the media is handy for those without speedy throughput or working through the troubles of making sure our accounts have access in the first place just to get started.

Alternatively as a third option, as Jon mentioned due to a lack of DVD-ROM, a single 16-32GB flash drive holding all of the ISOs/OVAs could make things even quicker to upload direct to the local data store for install since I pretty much just rip the DVD to an ISO and upload it anyways.

Regards,

DJ