Cisco vs. Polycom - Phone System
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh, so someone on the board is getting paid off. Little doubt there. This is exactly what corruption in America looks like.
I think you're being overly dramatic - I seriously doubt anyone is being paid off, changing numbers for a business isn't an easy thing.
It's extremely easy and there is no reason that the school board should be involved in the under the hood details of IT needs. That the school board even knows to block a massive cost reduction project is weird, let alone that they would take the time to block it and protect a local business that is screwing the students.
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@Dashrender said:
That said, it might be worth the effort to make a presentation to take to the next public school board meeting and make your case for changing, assuming you can't port the numbers to a SIP provider.
I would not go out of your way to make the school board look like fools in public, which is a very real possibility if they have been blocking a cost saving measure for a long time. The savings you show for the future also represents the money lost in the past.
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Depending on the size of the district, something like changing phone numbers might not be at the school level, it might require board approval.
At that point it's not about a budget.. it's about communications.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh, so someone on the board is getting paid off. Little doubt there. This is exactly what corruption in America looks like.
I think you're being overly dramatic - I seriously doubt anyone is being paid off, changing numbers for a business isn't an easy thing.
That said, it might be worth the effort to make a presentation to take to the next public school board meeting and make your case for changing, assuming you can't port the numbers to a SIP provider.
I'm going to agree with @Dashrender I know several school board members... they are incompetent for sure but very few are actually corrupt... or they are competent enough to hide their corruption. I'm going with the former though because of experience.
It does not take many being corrupt. One corrupt and many incompetent is all that is needed. Very likely the one that is corrupt is also an investor in the telecom or the local Cisco reseller or both. These things are generally super simple and insanely basic. It doesn't take conspiracy or complexity. Local business owner sits on school board and votes in his own interest rather than in the interest of the students. It's as simple as it gets.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
That said, it might be worth the effort to make a presentation to take to the next public school board meeting and make your case for changing, assuming you can't port the numbers to a SIP provider.
I would not go out of your way to make the school board look like fools in public, which is a very real possibility if they have been blocking a cost saving measure for a long time. The savings you show for the future also represents the money lost in the past.
What makes you think they know anything about the cost savings portion of this discussion? I would consider it more likely that they were simply told - hey we are looking to change phone systems.. but a specific one would require a phone number change.. is that ok?
and they responded uh. .no.. and it was dropped.
If the school board had any followup questions like, well, what system are you looking at and why the need for a number change - likely the answer was - uh we'll get back to you... and then those presenting to the board decided it was to much work and just are now telling the OP .. yeah they said no.
Yup, I'm reading a lot into it.. but it's all politics.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
That said, it might be worth the effort to make a presentation to take to the next public school board meeting and make your case for changing, assuming you can't port the numbers to a SIP provider.
I would not go out of your way to make the school board look like fools in public, which is a very real possibility if they have been blocking a cost saving measure for a long time. The savings you show for the future also represents the money lost in the past.
This... if your board is blocking it I don't think I would stick my neck out like this.
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@Dashrender said:
Depending on the size of the district, something like changing phone numbers might not be at the school level, it might require board approval.
At that point it's not about a budget.. it's about communications.
That's a dangerous game to play. You would really need a lot of confidence that those are really just incompetent people. If they control the budget and direct decisions like that, they control your job too.
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@Dashrender said:
What makes you think they know anything about the cost savings portion of this discussion?
Because that is the lesser of two evils. If they are blocking cost savings measures totally arbitrarily because they are just malicious and not even bothering to consider the options at all, that's pure evil. At least acting in their own interests to make money on the side has its merits. Just being evil for its own sake is... well very evil.
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@Dashrender said:
and they responded uh. .no.. and it was dropped.
And you think that that is not a horrible thing? For them to arbitrarily block IT decision making based on zero known factors?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Depending on the size of the district, something like changing phone numbers might not be at the school level, it might require board approval.
At that point it's not about a budget.. it's about communications.
That's a dangerous game to play. You would really need a lot of confidence that those are really just incompetent people. If they control the budget and direct decisions like that, they control your job too.
What? we seemed to have changed gears.
The communications I'm referring to are the phone numbers, the ability for the community to call the same number they have for the past 50 years. Not about communication between admins and the board.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Depending on the size of the district, something like changing phone numbers might not be at the school level, it might require board approval.
At that point it's not about a budget.. it's about communications.
That's a dangerous game to play. You would really need a lot of confidence that those are really just incompetent people. If they control the budget and direct decisions like that, they control your job too.
What? we seemed to have changed gears.
The communications I'm referring to are the phone numbers, the ability for the community to call the same number they have for the past 50 years. Not about communication between admins and the board.
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Depending on the size of the district, something like changing phone numbers might not be at the school level, it might require board approval.
At that point it's not about a budget.. it's about communications.
That's a dangerous game to play. You would really need a lot of confidence that those are really just incompetent people. If they control the budget and direct decisions like that, they control your job too.
What? we seemed to have changed gears.
The communications I'm referring to are the phone numbers, the ability for the community to call the same number they have for the past 50 years. Not about communication between admins and the board.
But the numbers get ported. Should be no issue there.
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And unlike a business where customers might just move on, schools just announce new numbers and people use them. Even if you can't port the numbers you just move on. There is no need for a school to maintain numbers in perpetuity. That's a silly idea. Sure, they might use that as a "reason", but it is a flimsy excuse.
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Which leads me back to, whomever spoke to the board about this project did so half assed and likely the board asked for more info and the presenter said, awww screw it.
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Here is something to think about...
- What is the cost of the old PBX? What if the public found out that that cost could have been zero?
- What are the cost of the current handsets? What if the public found out that those could have been half or less what they are ($80 - $120.)
- What is the cost of the POTS lines? What if the public found out that likely those are 1,000% the cost that they could have been (common markup on those lines compared to VoIP.)
Add up those numbers. Now multiple by what, a decade? How big is that number? How big is the number that you could save in the future? That's great. But that's the number of what could have been saved in the past and has been blocked.
Even if you are dealing purely with incompetence and not corruption (and I'll argue all day that the incompetence is just a form of corruption), you are still talking about exposing and embarrassing people who are in a position of power. Even if they are just idiots or just uncaring and not at all getting kickbacks or making money from this decision... it will look to the public like they are.
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@Dashrender said:
Which leads me back to, whomever spoke to the board about this project did so half assed and likely the board asked for more info and the presenter said, awww screw it.
The board should have asked for more info before denying it then. There is a difference between waiting on clarification and denying a project.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Which leads me back to, whomever spoke to the board about this project did so half assed and likely the board asked for more info and the presenter said, awww screw it.
The board should have asked for more info before denying it then. There is a difference between waiting on clarification and denying a project.
We, through the OP, were told the board denied it.. what if the OP was lied to because the presenter didn't want to bother going back? This really seems like the most likely situation.
I look at the possibilities:
the board had all information but is corrupt and said no to savings
the board wasn't give all needed info and the presenter decided not to follow up and instead made their own decision to kill that avenue.the second option is even more likely if the only reason this even went to the board was because of the phone number change, and not a budget request... but we don't know that part either.
there are just to many unknowns.
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@Dashrender said:
We, through the OP, were told the board denied it.. what if the OP was lied to because the presenter didn't want to bother going back? This really seems like the most likely situation.
Always valid to consider that the source information is wrong. But then we really know nothing. If it is a major player in IT, same issues would apply. Do we risk upsetting someone who can fire you?
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@Dashrender said:
there are just to many unknowns.
Yes, but only if we choose to decide that the presented facts are unknowns. If we accept the presented framework as is, we can narrow somewhat. If we consider everything as suspect then we have to include the possibility that @BBigford made the whole thing up and just wants Cisco. Or maybe he made up working for a school? Maybe he made himself up and he's a bot
My point being, you have to accept reasonable constraints as true or it always becomes an exercise in guessing which constraints are made up. Which I get, there is value to it. But it becomes more philosophical than useful, I think.
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All great points, and we'll back to doing what they want because they can fire us, and it's rarely worth caring more for our jobs than the company does.
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@Dashrender said:
All great points, and we'll back to doing what they want because they can fire us, and it's rarely worth caring more for our jobs than the company does.
Right, that's the biggest deal. If you are confident with your boss, a quick "I've heard that VoIP and Asterisk could save us a large fortune and protect the school long term" and see if that is met with a "oh, let's dig into this" or "never mention this to anyone" stare.
