I really do not why I don’t care much for Voice Over IP. It’s certainly technical. Heck man, if you’re stuck on QoS, go ask a voice geek. Resellers are begging for more voice engineers, so it’s a great career path. You can really do some very cool things with it that your end users just will love you for. Heck, if there’s a more visible direct impact to a business other than voice, I’d like to know what it is.
But still; when funding comes thru for a voice show I’m always thinking…”meh”… Which is funny because without a doubt our best and most award winning shows have been on voice! You’d think I’d love it right? Hey ya what? when was younger growing up in the hills of Tennessee (hereby referred to as God’s One True Love from henceforth) my first experience with hacking was on our telephone system with rapid hook switch tapping to become a tandem or punching thru busy signals was a real hoot. Of course the Capt’n introduced us to blue boxing and a splendid time was guaranteed for all…
Next week is a TechWiseTV taping week for us. Right now, this show has two things going against it; first off, it’s a voice show and second (and most important) it’s also an upgrade show. Yep folks, that’s right a push to get you to upgrade your CUCM.
Now look, we all have bills to pay so there always some level of butt kissing and boot licking that has to go on any show. Video is expensive. For me, I never ever ever promote ANYTHING on TechWiseTV that I would not be happy to stand by or even support in the future. I’m grateful TechWiseTV can do that. We turn down shows because we just do not believe it’s the best for the network. Like my Grandmother taught me all those years ago…”If ya ain’t got nuthin’ nice to say, then shut the friggen crap up goober…” Ah she was quite the wordsmith for sure.
I don’t know about y’all, but I am not a big upgrade person at all. Upgrading sucks worst then a going camping with your mother in law on Indy 500 race weekend and forgetting the beer. From and engineering view point; why fix something that isn’t broke? Upgrading means my hardware is going to be slower (if it’s compatible), my licensing is going to be really messed up, tech support is going to be worthless, major downtime, oh yeah…and this is voice? Namely Cisco voice, wholly friggen shnikasourus rex man! You need a PhD in CUCM licensing to figure that one out, plus my dial plan, migrating my DB…and you know what…that camping trip is looking better all the time now….
Robb and I designed this show to have the voice team prove us that we need to upgrade. To be honest, they better bring their “A” game. ‘Cause I ain’t buying it yet. TechWiseTV is unscripted and we do not see the content that our guests bring on the show beforehand. We like to keep it real and spontaneous. We just ask that slides have minimal words, no marketing or vision statement crap, any quote from any analysis puts you in Aldrich Ames status and removed from the set and have the slides in 16×9 format.
I’m bringing all of these doubts onto the set on Tuesday morning to see if they can address them. It’s still early, so if there is something you want to make sure we cover, toss in your comments before 16Jul13 and we’ll cover ‘um…then tune it see…upgrade or not?? In the meantime, anyone got a tent I can borrow?
Jimmy Ray Purser
Trivia File Transfer Protocol
A pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold. This is because feathers are measured in avoirdupois weight which is 16 ounces per pound and gold is weighed in troy weight which is 12 ounces per pound.
Speaking of upgrades.. we’ve spent over a year getting our global CUCM boxes up to 8.6 and then we were able to convince management to purchase our first TX9000 telepresence unit.
Unfortunately, the incapable VAR that our procurement folks selected in a far away region had never sold a TX9k, had no idea what version of CUCM we were running, and we’re pretty sure lied to Cisco to make the sale in stating they performed a proper requirements check.
So the tx9000 shows up and guess what – we can’t use it because it requires CUCM 9.0 or 9.1.
Well.. how about that.. so you think easy upgrade on the local CUCM? Well… now we find out.. nope that hardware isn’t supported.. and there are some other caveats in going from 8.6 to 9.1 and so we’re stuck.
Nice 200 thousand dollar tx9000 sitting there and we can’t use it because theres no other way to manage it – nada zip zilch zero.
Yay Cisco – another sale! I’m forced to buy a small CUCM express to get 9.1 loaded up just so I can turn the damn camera on!
Ok rant over… and now we are faced with having to perform the upgrades of our 8.6 to 9.1 on 9 other global clusters so we can complete my full any to any Video vision and get the full benefits of VCS so we can do video across any platform and include those evil Pcom video units.
Ok now the rants over..
Can’t wait for the show!
Doh – i meant we’re on 8.5 now before someone smart corrects me.
Jimmy Ray! How dare you bash VOIP? As the former “voice chick” on the show and knowing your current voice co-host, I feel betrayed. I know you loved our voice shows, even the one on customer care and contact centers. 🙂 Shall I challenge you to a duel to resolve these issues?
Brian, ranting so openly! Great points – theres a lot of stuff in those little dot release details huh.
Tina, Tina, Tina….your crown remains untouched. Laura has enough respect not only to show it respect…I have a feeling she will break down JR for you…but you are always welcome to come on…a dual…I would tune in for that!