Nimans and Rocom held a joint Aastra 800 preview event at Manchester City FC which kicked-off a four venue nationwide roadshow where each attendee received a starter pack worth over £500 containing everything they need to get the ‘next generation system’ up and running, including valuable application software licences.
One Cheadle Hulme-based reseller won a bottle of champagne at the City of Manchester Stadium for guessing the nearest time to the 52.64 seconds it took to initially install the technology as part of a live installation challenge.
“Today has been a very informative day. I like this soft PBX, the speed of install is particularly impressive,” he said. “ We are an IT support company so we don’t normally sell telephone systems but in the last six months we have sold three, from a different manufacturer. We are seeing more demand for modern telephone systems which don’t require the traditional box on a wall. This technology has opened up the voice market for us and products such as the Aastra 800 can help take us further forward. It fits in very well with our business model.”
His positive comments were echoed by a Leeds-based reseller who said he was also very impressed by the Aastra 800’s many capabilities.
“We sell almost exclusively Aastra and this new product will undoubtedly have a positive impact in the market. We’ve seen another similar system and lost out to it in the past. This is a superb version and we will certainly be looking at bringing it on board. We view this kind of technology as being a big part of future communications. We find that when Aastra do release something it is very much ready for the market; you can trust it and go and install it straight away with complete confidence. The 800 is very quick and simple to install, probably a non-engineer could do it.”
Nimans’ and Rocom’s Systems Sales Director, Phil Adams, told the audience this was the most comprehensive on-boarding package he has ever been involved in - with resellers able to take advantage of a free lead generation scheme, marketing and technical support, sales training and two-for-one technical training, in addition to the free starter pack for demonstration purposes.
“Aastra are genuinely excited by this product which sits in the SME segment, supporting up to 200 users. This is a growing and emerging market, technology which is tried and trusted as it has evolved from Aastra’s OpenCom PBX family of traditional hardware,” he pointed out.
Phil emphasised how the system is straightforward to deploy and adopt, with a maximum of three days training required for installers to master all aspects of the system.
“The Aastra 800 can run with the widest range of terminals - IP, SIP, softphones and DECToverIP technology as well as on ISDN and analogue trunks,” he explained. “It can quickly and easily expand or set-up fully functioning offices wherever there is a broadband network, with multiple web-based integrated applications forming part of a powerful, versatile, dependable and fully featured telephony solution.
“Resellers are being provided with everything they need, the ideal launch pad for selling the new system straight out of the box on a no risk basis.”