I have heard rumors. Anything concrete?

Havent heard any such thing. The Axxess serves the medium to large business market and there isnt anything in the works to replace it. In fact there are several major enhancements in the works for release in 07'

I haven't heard anything either.

What are the rumored enhancements for the Axxess in 2k7?

Also the 7000 can grow to 2500 ports- 2.5x the size of an ATM Axxess.

They may discontinue it in...oh...maybe the next 10 years or so...

What changes does Mr. Mihaylo want to make? Well, his January 19th letter outlined nine major changes:


Consider reducing the size of Inter-Tel's Board from 11 to 10 members, with the Board consisting of (a) the Chief Executive Officer, (b) Dr. Puri, Mr. Urish and me, (c) three other existing outside members of the Board, and (d) three new independent directors mutually acceptable to the Board and me.

Alternatively, in order to save costs and facilitate the scheduling of Board meetings, I would be amenable to a 7 member Board, consisting of (a) the Chief Executive Officer, (b) Dr. Puri, Mr. Urish and me, and (c) three new independent directors mutually acceptable to the Board and me.

Retain a financial advisor to advise the Board on the feasibility and financial impact of a Dutch-auction self tender offer to repurchase between $200 million and $250 million of the Company's common stock.

Disband the Special Committee, thereby eliminating all of the costs associated therewith.
Direct management to (a) undertake an intensive cost-benefit analysis of

(i) discontinuing product development on the Axxess

and (ii) redirecting the engineering effort to "gateway" products and "hosted services" offerings, including the necessary billing platform for hosted services, and (

b) report the results of that analysis to the Board. I believe these actions will produce significant cost savings and provide significant sales opportunities.

Consolidate the Company's multiple engineering facilities into the Chandler location. This will reduce overhead and improve productivity, while encouraging new and better ways to speed up product development.

Explore the sale of the Company's Irish subsidiary, unless its performance significantly improves within a set period of time. This would enable management to concentrate on more profitable opportunities, as well as raise additional cash to offset the costs of the self tender offer.

Explore ways to better utilize the Company’s 15 acre campus in Reno.

Undertake an evaluation of the recommendations in the consulting report that the Mihaylo/Vector Group provided to Inter-Tel as a result of the Settlement Agreement executed in May 2006.
Defer implementation of the proposed by-law amendments until the foregoing issues are actively considered.

I just spoke to our Intertel rep and to a few Intertel people and they say that the Axxess line is not being discontinued yet, of course some day it probably will. Intertel is currently working on integrating it with the 7000 system via a SIP networking module and they are also releasing software that will bump the node capacity to 99.

how many nodes can the Axxess network now?

63...20,000 devices. I heard two years ago that 10.x was the end of the line for Axxess....

I don't see this happening quite yet. The only other traditional switch they would have to offer would be the Encore CX, which can't possibly replace the Axxes. IP is growing, but it just isn't time yet to be all IP.

99 nodes!!!! That's a big system!

I have heard the same rumors that 10.0 is the last version...but we shall see.

I have a Mitel support contact in town who is separate from my Inter-tel support contact. They used to service our old SX2000. He told me this week that they are no longer doing technician training for Axxess systems at all. I am not sure what is coming, or when but I will be discussing this with my Inter-tel rep.

The Axxess system is one of the best systems on the market from any manufacture. What a loss when it is disconntinued.

Rumblings are in terms of details that they got rid of Intertel's Axxcess and the 7000. They kept Intertel's 3000 and 5000 line and changed the branding on it to Mitel. They are making the Mitel VoIP phones work on the Intertel products that they kept. Mitel still has its 200ICP and its 3300ICP which are their IP systems. This is very bad news....

From what I gather through the grapevine, they (Mitel/Inter-Tel) are not going to do any more Axxess releases after version 11. After that, they are going to beging increasing prices on Axxess components to drive buyers towards the communications servers. I hear they plan on doubling the price of a KSU cabinet to discourage it's use.

That's one way to do it..not sure if its a good way though...they could lose a lot of biz.

Besides almost doubling the price of the Axxess KSU, PS, station and T-1 cards they are discontinuing 5000 packages w/ 8600 series phones- only available w/ Mitel phones.

I heard that as well...

In this economy I do not think it is the right move. But it will work out nicely for our company because we specialize in refurbished Inter-Tel solution. Happy Holiday!!!!

I see a large base of existing systems out there that continue to need service and or upgrades...I think parts will be available but I don't like the way they are going with this...

The 5000 system is a perfect upgrade for the majority of Inter-tel customers out there. As of version 2.5 they will be doubling the digital ports from 96 to 192. The larger customers actually fit better in a Mitel 3300 with the redundant controllers and resilency. The plan is to put the Axxess cabinets on the 3300 controller and as far is I know that is still on the roadmap. We were lucky because our company had been doing Mitel for 25 years and Inter-tel for about 10 but as I see it so far it has been a perfect fit of both needs.

Upgrading to the Mitel 5000 is a nice move if your company is booming or there is a real need. Your average customer will not tolerate a vendor forcing a VoIP product on them. Currently there are over 200 Inter-Tel items on ebay- coupled with wholesalers- there is an endless supply of Axxess out there.

Will the Mitel systems communicate with the Inter-Tel? We have an Axxess and two 5200s. Eventually we'll have to replace the Axxess. I know the InterTel stuff doesn't support SIC, so they won't communicate with other manufacturers.

The Inter-tel 5000 is not the Mitel 5000. Mitel just released v2.4 that integrates Mitel 5xxx series IP phones. As you know the digital and ip Inter-Tel will migrate to the 5000.

Did you mean SIP? Inter-Tel does support it with a SIP server.

A single Inter-Tel 5600 won't replace the system we currently use. We'd like to avoid having to buy two Inter-Tel switches to replace the Axxess we already own. Mitel had said they were working on having their switches communicate with the Inter-Tel switches. That's a far cry from being able to use different endpoints.

I was told the protocol was SIC that allowed the transfer of information from different manufacturers of PBXs. I may have been told wrong.

Does anyone use Inter-tel direct to support them? We have basic support with them and they are pushing a 'total solution' now where essentially they own it and do all maintenance. It is expensive. We have techs on site that handle adds/moves/changes, but I am concerned about catastrophic outage really. Is it really worth paying that high price due to fear though? I am curious if anyone is using their direct support at all.

QSIG is probably what they were talking about dflesch. I am so disappointed in Inter-Tel I can barely stand it. I say that as dealer support is in the basement now compared to what it was before the Inter-Tel sell out to Mitel. I do mean sell out too, lame IMO. No offense to the Mitel dealers but there are alot of traditional Inter-tel dealers bailing, the one I work for included. Sad. I am not impressed with Mitel products in any way. Inter-Tel should have stayed the course, continued with the 7000, 5000 and Axxess for awhile. The 7000 smoked the pants off of anything that I have ever seen application and feature wise. Bitter, you bet.

Hey Chris...PM sent

Are the Model 8622 and 8662 IP sets on their way out as well?

My company is under "total solution" for our Axxess. It was not my choice to enter into it but putting the cost aside the support we get is very good. We deal with the Inter-Tel manufacturer office in our city and all things considered they are doing a fine job. A few months back they suggested that we look at replacing our system with a Mitel and replacing our total solution lease. They stepped us through the costs and pros and cons and both Inter-Tel sales and our management agreed we should stick with Axxess. A very fair assessment I thought.

Inter-Tel/Mitel is doubling the price of Axxess components starting Oct. 1st. I would not go back into the "Total Lease." You can buy all the components on the secondary market to serve as back up. This minimal investment will save you many thousands in the long run.

Thanks for the clarification Chris. I've not had a chance to look at the Mitel stuff. I hope we have an alternative to dual 5600s. My Axxess and two 5200s have communication issues now.

I feel your pain.

Hello,

I bought a used IPC card recently.
I cannot login to it.
firmware = 1.203

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
JD

Hi John :toast:

Rumors of Axxess v12.0 w/ SIP Trunking. Has anyone else heard anything?

11.0 enables SIP trunking. We've used Quintum gateways to replace MGCP gateways using SIP Trunking. Haven't heard of anybody using true SIP trunks with the Axxess of 5000 yet....

I wouldn't count on it. If I were a betting man, I'd bet the last number will begin with an 11.

Why?

Mitel integrated their IP stations into the 5000 only. They're in the process of killing off the 86xx series phones and are developing a SIP integration for the NuPoint voice mail exclusively to the 5000.
Bye, bye Axxess, it was nice while it lasted.

There are some who may argue that the Axxess is a dinosaur whose time has come...

SoCalJake is where my money is if i was a betting man.

Any updates when Mitel will discontinue the Axxess?

Mitel really doesn't owe any of us 'classic' dealers anything at all. What if Inter-tel simply would have gone bankrupt and closed their doors? The license management center gone, etc. At least there is some, if very little, support for the Axxess and tons of dirt cheap cards and phones out there.