Toshiba Phone System

Small business looking for new phone system...Avaya, BCM, or Samsung?

My company is looking into buying a new phone system. Debating between Avaya, BCM,and Samsung? Advice? I work in a law firm with 5 employees, but we need the capapbilities to expand. We also would like voicemail, page, and intercom capabilites. If you know anything about the service and/or technical issues with any of these phones feel free to let us know:

Public Comments

1. I am a phone system dealer in Houston, TX. Almost every phone system will allow you to add a voicmail system, page, and have intercomm. The important things to consider are upfront cost, reliability, and future support. Avaya systems are fantastic, but they are very expensive once you purchase all of their licenses. They are targeted towards your large businesses (100 users+) where you can can take full advantage of their features. For a company of your size you will not see the benefit compared to the cost. They are reliable and the support is great. However, for a company of your size I don't think that they are going to be cost effective. BCM makes decent systems for a low price, but they have reliability issues. You should be able to get 10+ years out of a good phone system and you can in no way count on this out of a BCM system. With BCM you may have difficulty with the support aspect. In my experience if a system dealer is offering BCM today you can't expect them to offer it tomorrow. This means that in the future the company that sold it to you may not support it for program changes and upgrades. At that point you may have a difficult time finding someone decent to provide service to you. Samsung makes good quality systems that have decent reliability. You could have some issues with future support like the BCM. However, Samsung is a better system so you will be able to find a better quality of dealer that will support it longer. When weighing the things that I feel are important in picking a system I feel that this is the best of your three choices. All of this being said, if you don't mind considering another option, I would personally recommend a Panasonic phone system. They are very cost effective, very reliable, and easy to support and upgrade. In my opinion, Panasonic would provide the best solution for you needs. For a company of your size you can't go wrong with Panasonic and you won't have any future headaches. I would recommend the KX-TDA50 system and you can find a local dealer here: http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelDetail?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&itemId=68388&catGroupId=25211&modelNo=KX-TDA50&surfModel=KX-TDA50&cacheProgram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702
2. Hi there - If you are 5 employees (or even if you were 105 employees), I would seriously consider a Virtual PBX (starting at $9.95/month) from a company like RingCentral. This has all the features of a full phone system but there's no box or wires to install (I don't think it will support intercom capabilities - that's the only negative). Your employees' cell phones or voip phones are the 'extensions'. You can read my review of RingCentral here: http://small-business-phone.com/?p=4. If you *must* go the route of a traditional PBX, may I suggest Bizfon.com. This does everything the "major" PBX solutions do but a fraction of the cost (I used one at a company I owned, from 1998 to 2001.) Look at $3000 fully installed, plus your recurring local/long distance charges for each line. But I would seriously consider RingCentral instead, as you will be saving LOTS of money and the solution is very flexible to meet virtually all your needs.