With hundreds of choices available in the EPABX market, choosing the one that would not only meet your current business requirements but also take care of the future needs, is not going to be an easy job. The job is compounded by the fact that the cut-throat competition between vendors has meant that they are always more eager to push their own product and less interested in considering the needs of the user. So listed below are some tips that an enterprise should keep in mind before finalizing a EPABX deal.

n Calculating Costs: When arriving at the cost of investment, avoid calculating on the basis of an immediate expenditure that would be incurred on buying a solution. Do away with that approach and rather take into consideration all the future operational costs, and costs of moves, adds and changes. Remember a short-term saving today, could prove costly for your business tomorrow.

n Do not look for boxes: Buy a platform instead, so that you can make additions and changes in the communication network built around it. This way you can maximize your investment. Buying a box would limit your option and could prove to be disruptive in the future.

n Don’t forget these: Overall an enterprise should keep these considerations in mind when deciding on an EPABX: open server based architecture, open operating system—Linux , Win 2K, Unix etc; VoIP-ready—H323, H.248 and future SIP compliance; support for all kind of network interfaces—ISDN, E1, CO, etc.; support for all kind of end points—analog , digital, IP soft, hard phones, wireless phones etc.; security features on IP—encryption, etc.; interoperability for smooth multi-vendor environment functioning; ease of management—GUI LAN based administration and application and feature functionality integration, support and roadmap.

n Bet on Nonproprietary Open Standards: Ensure that whichever solution you buy from the vendor, avoid proprietary and closed-architecture based solutions. While upgrades are easy and less costly on nonproprietary, open-standard platforms, additions and changes are either impossible or very difficult on proprietary and closed standards.

n Do not Buy Features/applications You Do not Need: You need not buy applications, which you do not need currently. But make sure that you can easily add new applications in the future as the need arises and that too, without incurring considerable costs. For example, today, you may not need a video-conferencing application, but make sure that when you need it, you do not need to change the entire EPABX but just add a video-conferencing solution to it.

n Ensure Interoperability: If you are looking for not just voice but many other applications, buy a solution that would be inter-operable with applications from a diverse set of vendors and solution providers.

n Check for Reliability and Redundancies: Don’t take every word of the vendor. When encountered with conflicting versions on issues like reliability and redundancies in a solution, check out with the existing users.

n In case looking for a pure IP EPABX: Before you plan for an IP EPABX, make sure that your existing infrastructure (like wiring) supports such a solution, and also check out for inter-operability of the new EPABX with the existing devices.

Also ensure that the IP-addressing system can handle the new voice IP application. Also remember that in India, voice and data integration over a single network is still not allowed, so you would not be able to fully exploit the benefits of IP.

Enterprises looking for more applications in an EPABX should not necessarily buy an IP EPABX now. For many of the enterprises, it would be a costly investment that can not be justified in a country like India that still does not permit integrated voice and data networks.

However, every enterprise willing to buy an EPABX, should at least look for a solution that would facilitate easy migration to IP whenever such a need arises.

Most big vendors would give a definite roadmap for IP enablement of their PBX by adding the gatekeeper, gateway functionalities and some software upgrades. However, they do differ in the level of functionalities, scalabilities and costs etc.

Also, few would have live sites demonstrating the same in India. Hence the customer should ensure that the road map provided is scalable and without any loss of feature functionalities and is not a fork lift upgrade to be cost effective. Also look for demo sites to ensure local vendor support of the solution.

n Service Is Important: Service-level agreements with vendors are important. Services are varied in nature, and include both usual nut-and-bolt kind of fixing of problems and sophisticated remote management. The more complex solution you employ, the better you should ask for. Some vendors offer graded services, i.e. different categories of services. So ensure what suits you best. The best service is the one that proactively monitors the system.

n Indulge in Some Hard Bargaining: Most vendors usually offer a price flexibility that ranges from 15 to 30 percent. This means that whatever price a vendor asks for, you can bring it down by 15 to 30 percent. But be cautious of a situation where the vendor succeeds in selling a phone system that is too small for your growth but sounds attractive price-wise.