Posts made by scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

My NodeBB forum backed up, and updated to current.

Node v12.8.1
NodeBB v1.12.2

Sleep now.

Night

If the policy wasn't aggressively "no support unless it's authorized", none of it would matter. That they put such a policy in place before having a way to verify is a huge problem that they could fix in a split second.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Who said they don't?

Technically they do, you can say that their site sucks, but if you query the sole official listing for voipsupply, it says that there is no authorized dealer with that name.

If you search for the one that Fanvil specifically mentioned in this thread it is not found either. Under ABP, ABP Tech, ABPTech, ABP International, or ABP International Inc.

Shitty website is shitty.

That's not a reseller at all, though. So a different animal that's for partners to look up, not for customers to verify before purchase.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

vil employee has said, here in this thread, that they are working to update their website with a list. At which point it is assumed that you, @scottalanmiller, will be able to see it for yourself.

I asked for authorized resellers directly and got none. And the only official channel doesn't list this one. Fanvil could easily have a press release or statement that they are official if it were so.

The site has a list now, just not a published one. But it has a system.

Going by what Fanvil officially says, returns a different result than you are saying. Sure, Fanvil probably is so bad at this that their own rules and lists are wrong. But it's pretty extreme to say all of that is wrong, and one random company's claim that doesn't affect supportability to the customer overrides all of that.

If it came down to a customer trying to get support, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, no matter how plausible it seems to trust voipsupply.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Who said they don't?

Technically they do, you can say that their site sucks, but if you query the sole official listing for voipsupply, it says that there is no authorized dealer with that name.

So while yes, it ridiculous for voipsupply to make that up. But everything involving the process requires "ignore the official statements and rules and just trust that everyone in the process doesn't go by the stated rules."

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Who said they don't? You? It is barely a month and a half old on that agreement, and it has been established that Fanvil's website sucks.

Backed up means that they stand behind it. What I'm pointing out is that Fanvil doesn't notably back up that statement anywhere.

the reality is, support is overrated. And at $68, you can put up with a lot of problems. It's a really good price.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Google returns two results
VoIP Supply and NTS Direct.
December 2018: http://ntsdirect.com/ntsdirect-and-fanvil-announce-distribution-partnership/
June 2019: https://www.voipsupply.com/blog/voip-insider/voip-supply-is-now-an-authorized-distributor-of-fanvil-technologies/

NTS was the unknown small vendor that doesn't let you order online that I was talking about.

VoipSupply has the ridiculously bad prices.

And it is them claiming themselves as being authorized. But Fanvil doesn't back that up, do they?

My eight year old just did a google search for herself on the Internet and found herself. lol

@hobbit666 said in HCI vendors: software or hardware:

Or would you still look at another layer of backup/DR

A DR site is not the same as a backup. Generally those things are different.

@hobbit666 said in HCI vendors: software or hardware:

Would people consider having a cluster at site 1 then another cluster (maybe smaller) at site 2 adequate for DR?

That is super common.

Doing that setup with a Scale cluster currently, in fact.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Because you cannot find it with their (shitty) search, does not mean there is not a list of authorized resellers.

If the list isn't available to use, and is required to protect the customer, it's equivalent to not existing. As it is required to know who is on it to get support.

As only authorized resellers are official, and as there are no listed authorized resellers, does this not imply that all Fanvil products in the US are technically black market as they are "characterized by some form of noncompliant behavior with an institutional set of rules".

What makes even less sense, is that any customer can publish pricing information publicly. So a reseller need only have someone else mention their lower prices and work around the MAP process quickly and easily. So the MAP doesn't keep the prices up, it just makes the process overly silly.

Here is the end all of the situation. Fanvil's MAP policy states clearly "All products sold via unauthorized resellers will not be recognized, neither supports by Fanvil."

This means that Fanvil is off the table, period. You can never tell a customer that they will definitely be supported. Fanvil can punish your reseller at any time and that punishment carries on to the end customer with nothing that they can do about it.

http://fanvil.com/Partners/aboutmap.html

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

The assumption is that eventually the Fanvil units should trickle down to retail and a comparatively lower cost than Yealink. Which the apparently unauthorized company on amazon shows will happen.

That might be true, but we don't know as the prices have to rise to become authorized.

@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

The channel though has to output to retail at some point

Yes, of course, resellers can output retail price, and we make a minimum advertising price, too. It's channel sales management, every vendor is doing the same

But how do we find a reseller that is authorized? There is no list, and no one has mentioned one.

It feels like the black market (unauthorized) is the only source of Fanvil products.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Way over Yealink also priced at VoIPSupply? Not even close.

I don't need to buy Yealink at Voipsupply, I can buy it anywhere.

Not the point for price comparison.

Yes the point for the business wanting to make a purchase.

Different information.

The point was... with Yealink I get good prices that are supported. With Fanvil I put in a search and only found Amazon, some podunk site that doesn't let you place an order, and VoipSupply at a crazy price.

So the high price at the only other option is pretty relevant.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Two places I order from (ie I have an account to sign in) do not sell Fanvil.

Baltic Networks & Double Radius.

Same here, the only place that I buy is Amazon that carries them. But they are secretly not authorized (secretly meaning that neither the authorized, nor the unauthorized list is published.)

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Way over Yealink also priced at VoIPSupply? Not even close.

I don't need to buy Yealink at Voipsupply, I can buy it anywhere.

After seeing the thread about MAP pricing and reading the MAP policy of a vendor the practice seems insane. Now for very complicated products that can be reasonably sold by a VAR, I could see this potentially making sense. Products of that nature are really sold as service bundles, not boxes of goods. But products like phones cannot be sold by a VAR as there is no "value add" option, it's purely just a store and the only value a store can "add" is by lowering the price or improving the delivery. That's it.

So why would makers of products like phones or other commodity goods where the only quality differentiator between resellers by price set a minimum advertised price? The only possible outcome of that action is to make the products look price-inflated to the customers, and raise the margins for the resellers, but provide no benefit to the vendor. Why would a vendor want to push away customers and lower their own profits? This seems insane.

Some things that don't work well in western business are price haggling and lack of online sales. All viable stores are online, going to a brick and mortar isn't an option in the real world. And haggling only makes sense when dealing with insane volumes of items or when the parties involved have no other use for their time. People on vacation in bazaars can haggle because their are on vacation and their time has no value. But in business, anyone haggling on price is spending company resources on the time to argue over the price - that's time that is just wasted. A MAP seems to represent a disregard for the value of your customer's time.

If you consider that a consultant will cost almost always at least $100/hr, and that most haggling will at best save only a small amount, and that the time required to haggle often causes not just wasted human effort time, but also delays completing a sale and delaying a deployment, it can be very hard to find any way that there is a benefit to the process. The product sells for a lower price, but the customer gets less value. All parties lose when you haggle. Haggling is the resort of the valueless, an attempt to find value when the only thing that there is to trade is time. Successful businesses know that time is money and haggling is a worthless pursuit. It is almost always more cost effective to pay more for a reasonable, but not the lowest price, when it is set and public. Faster transactions, more often, with less overhead provide better profits, and better value. Everyone wins.

Adding the attempt at "value add" by training sales staff increases risk, as well. Sales staff cannot reasonably provide any actual value in a commodity transaction. Any knowledge that they will have is cursory at best, and incorrect information is nearly expected. Anything recommended by a sales person must be suspect. The only way to make a sales person have value is to withhold product details from public research so that by making basic information secret, the sales person can then hold that information hostage (and risk getting it wrong, something very common).

https://msretailer.com/map-leads-minimum-advertised-price-helpful-tool-bane-retailers-existence/

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Voipsupply lists Fanvil https://www.voipsupply.com/manufacturer/fanvil

At prices WAY over Yealink!

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

But Fanvil seems to want to be in the channel partner zone only.

This is the sense that I'm getting as well. I can't seem to find anywhere to buy their phones except from Amazon, and that's discouraged. @Jason-Liu said that they would direct me to a distributor, but I can't use a distributor, because I'm not a reseller. The whole system seems broken.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Fanvil Support seems to only be here: http://fanvil.com/Support/ticket.html

That seems okay. Only need so much support.

@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

Fanvil MAP (minimum advertised price) policy
http://fanvil.com/Partners/aboutmap.html

"Fanvil further expects all resellers to take the time to learn about and properly promote its products, so resellers can properly serve their customers."

That sounds nice, but that just makes the price go up but doesn't add value. It would be way, way better to just post the specs on the website. You can't trust advice from a reseller.

https://smbitjournal.com/2011/07/never-get-advice-from-a-reseller-or-vendor/

@JaredBusch yeah, I tried the authorized search and got nothing.

I did a Google search and couldn't find any reasonable purchase option.

@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

we only provide support and service to the authorized online shop.

This statement conflicts with what you said later.

@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@scottalanmiller
see, you misunderstand my point, we support service to customers and partners if they use Fanvil IP Phone, meanwhile, we will suggest our authorized reseller or distributor to them, so they can get better support from the distributor or authorized resellers.

I see... that's better. But how do distributors or authorized resellers provide better service? The only factor that matters is the price, or delivery options. It's not a product where the distributor can provide some benefit.

@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:

@scottalanmiller
it's related to MAP, the price you find from Amazon is not from Fanvil MAP, we are trying to manage online price. And we have authorized resellers, and we are asking them to post MAP, not a lower price, hope you understand and get my points

This isn't an okay answer. That's a problem on the Fanvil side, withholding support from your customers to punish them for having gotten a good price from the prominent resellers is a huge afront and completely unacceptable.

Also, price controlling isn't a good thing. Why would you want to ensure customers do not get a good price? This makes no sense. High cost, no support... what am I missing?