The Microsoft Phone | The Coffeehouse

Maybe this has been talked about before, but I'll ask anyway.

What is with the same type of phone in every interview? It's seems to be pretty outdated. I would expect more of a nice looking IP phone, and not a beige looking phone from the 90's. Plus, all of the offices, have them.

Am I the only one to notice this?

blowdart

mcampbell wrote:

Maybe this has been talked about before, but I'll ask anyway.

What is with the same type of phone in every interview? It's seems to be pretty outdated. I would expect more of a nice looking IP phone, and not a beige looking phone from the 90's. Plus, all of the offices, have them.

From what I've encountered the phones are nifty; plugged into Office Communicator. Heck you get a voicemail and it'll end up in your inbox, or played down to your mobile, and you can dial from with your IM. Lovely stuff.

mcampbell

blowdart wrote:

mcampbell wrote:Maybe this has been talked about before, but I'll ask anyway.

What is with the same type of phone in every interview? It's seems to be pretty outdated. I would expect more of a nice looking IP phone, and not a beige looking phone from the 90's. Plus, all of the offices, have them.

From what I've encountered the phones are nifty; plugged into Office Communicator. Heck you get a voicemail and it'll end up in your inbox, or played down to your mobile, and you can dial from with your IM. Lovely stuff.

Neat, I guess you can have one or the other.
More features, or better design.

GoddersUK

mcampbell wrote:

Neat, I guess you can have one or the other.
More features, or better design.

Microsoft or Apple. Tongue Out

W3bbo

blowdart wrote:

mcampbell wrote:Maybe this has been talked about before, but I'll ask anyway.

What is with the same type of phone in every interview? It's seems to be pretty outdated. I would expect more of a nice looking IP phone, and not a beige looking phone from the 90's. Plus, all of the offices, have them.

From what I've encountered the phones are nifty; plugged into Office Communicator. Heck you get a voicemail and it'll end up in your inbox, or played down to your mobile, and you can dial from with your IM. Lovely stuff.

The phones are fairly standard, most of the features Blowdart speaks of are in the PBX/SIP server. So any PBX-compatible phone will do.

That said, I reckon it's because Microsoft ordered 20,000 phones at once; and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The phones work fine, so why bother to replace them at great expense?

PaoloM

I had that phone in my previous office. Now I have one of those fancy black IP ones.

That I do not use.

Because I suck at phones Sad

ScanIAm

W3bbo wrote:

blowdart wrote:

mcampbell wrote: Maybe this has been talked about before, but I'll ask anyway.

What is with the same type of phone in every interview? It's seems to be pretty outdated. I would expect more of a nice looking IP phone, and not a beige looking phone from the 90's. Plus, all of the offices, have them.

From what I've encountered the phones are nifty; plugged into Office Communicator. Heck you get a voicemail and it'll end up in your inbox, or played down to your mobile, and you can dial from with your IM. Lovely stuff.

The phones are fairly standard, most of the features Blowdart speaks of are in the PBX/SIP server. So any PBX-compatible phone will do.

That said, I reckon it's because Microsoft ordered 20,000 phones at once; and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The phones work fine, so why bother to replace them at great expense?

Yep, I was going to say that too. Their campus was set up and the buildings were built long before IP phones had the muscle to be worthwhile in a business setting.

They could be using pure IP phones where the termination of the connection is at the wall, or they could be using standard phones and a PBX in each building along with mapping for the network functionality in a central server.

blowdart

PaoloM wrote:

I had that phone in my previous office. Now I have one of those fancy black IP ones.

That I do not use.

Because I suck at phones

An IP phone? Did you get it all confused and cause the current forcing of WDS via Windows Update? Big Smile

Cybermagellan

Kinda like...

My Phone...

About 20 years ago these were bought, and they still work...and they're still programmable...no sense in spending money on something still working.