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What gives
@teleswitch.com
| reply to TelphoneGuru
Re: 3COM Power of $Zero cancelled?
The above postings are somewhat inaccurate. I can certainly understand how uninformed individuals can make unintelligent assessments about something they know nothing about. Here is the program in a nutshell. It’s a finance offering allowing qualified businesses to leverage their existing telecommunications expenses to offset the cost of acquiring new 3Com hardware for their business. Example: a customer is currently spending $2,000 on their dial tone and internet service. 3Com can then broker that same service for $1,100 a month passing on that $900 per month in the form of hardware. The net savings over the term of the contract now equals the upfront hardware allocation. $900 x 72 = $64,800. This amount is then leased and applied to their total monthly Power of Zero service payment. The net, net is the customer is currently spending $2000 per month on their telephone service and internet access. With the Power of Zero program they will be spending $1,100 for their service and $900 for their lease payment = $2000 (the same as they are currently spending for their service by itself) and they will get a new phone system with 6 years of maintenance included. There is nothing unique about this program; in fact many other manufacturers have similar financing programs to help their customers out. An earlier poster made an inaccurate statement about Cisco; Cisco does have a very similar offering through Cisco Capital Finance. There are many factors involved in determining whether a company may or may not qualify, but the most important is the financial viability of the business. If they are losing money, have bad credit, or are in tough vertical market, they will not qualify. Just because a company may not qualify for the program, doesn’t make it a bad program, it just means that they are very picky on whom they will finance; which is 3Com’s prerogative since they are the ones taking all the risk here. If a company was able to reduce their monthly telecommunications spend by half and then use that savings to pay for a lease of new hardware, it is the same thing as the Power of Zero program, what’s shady or BS about that? Unfortunately people always want to make snap judgments about things they know absolutely nothing about. There are at lease a dozen other companies doing similar programs to include companies like Paetec Communications with their EFS program. Don’t confuse a dead beat VAR’s program with 3Com’s program. Same name, different product.  | |
TelphoneGuru
join:2007-09-18
Fort Worth, TX
| It's obvious you either work for 3COM or are a VAR in bed with the program based on the verbiage you use. I know the verbiage all too well as someone who trained sales reps on the program. As a matter of fact, I probably know who you are, which makes it all the more entertaining to me personally that you felt the need to come here and defend the mother ship. When one is on the inside and has to spout the "company line" regardless of the reality occurring around them, their input and credibility is called into serious question.
A few short months ago you sang the praises of the Capital 4 program to your own VARS in spite of what they were telling you was happening, nearly bankrupting several VARs, and now you act as if 3COM came up with the idea themselves?
Nice try. That is NOT the truth. I recommend people look at 3COM's public financials to see just how much they paid Capital 4 for rights to the program. Look at that and tell me you believe this poster. All credibility is out the window.....
Capital 4 brought the program to 3COM. Capital 4 has financial issues due in part to 3COM breaking their contract with them, although they deserve every bit of the financial issues they do have due to mismanagement. Do I blame 3COM for breaking the agreement? Not necessarily, but it's more an indication that 3COM did NOT do their homework before signing the deal in the first place. That alone is disturbing as a publicly traded company. The hardware is pricey and substandard compared to industry feature sets as is, but if the company doesn't do their research before getting in bed with someone on this type of program large scale to the tune of several million dollars, how can I REALLY trust them to handle my dial tone services? I'm not going there.
And I would say it is NOT that similar to Paetec, as Paetec knows what they are doing as a telecom service provider. They have been one of the top nationwide CLECs in the country for years, and if I'm not mistaken were the first Cash Flow positive CLEC after deregulation of any notable size. That being said, for 3COM to think they can jump into carrier services and succeed is a little naive. They better be outsourcing EVERY part of the process. Pricing, provisioning, service and delivery, AND billing. Stick with what you know, and it will probably work fine. Try to get greedy and be too involved, and it will fail miserably. If I understand right, they are using bandwidth.com to get their services. Good move if they are.
Here is my little input:
If you want a good system, call someone else and log onto bandwidth.com yourself. You can actually put together a better deal yourself by dealing with the two separately. You'll get a better deal on dial tone, and you'll get a superior phone system. I do this all of the time, and it always beats the "amazing power of zero" program. So I still pay two bills.....big deal. Everyone does now, so it's not really a benefit.
As for thinking that Cisco does not have a similar program, you are wrong. As a matter of fact, there are several several Cisco vendors that have created their own. This was originally designed as a hosted solution, but the 3COM VCX (Their version of an enterprise product) is not an adequate solution. The reason Cisco has done so well in the IP market compared to 3COM is because, although pricey, it is a far superior product.
I have sold both, as well as NEC, Nortel, Shoretel and several others, so I feel quite qualified to say so. For anyone doing research, I would definitely evaluate some of the names that were mentioned above if considering Capital 4 in Houston, as well as look for references from SEVERAL companies that actually use the problem free in your area before touching the 3COM version of the program with a 1000 ft. pole. The truth is disturbing on this one, and there are about a hundred better options. I can give you about 50 references in the Fort Worth/Dallas market that will tell you what they think of the Power of Zero and.
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Create the budget for your new business telephone system with TeleTAP | |
Phone_Guy
join:2007-10-29
Riverside, CA
| I tend to agree with you Guru. My biggest issue with the program is the length.60-72 months depending on who you talk to.
You'd have to be a moron to sign a telecom agreement for 5 years. 5 years ago the first integrated T-1's came out in CA, and a full T worth of dynamic T ran around $1100. Today, the cost is a fraction of that. I can get service for arounnd $400 now. If I signed up on this program 5 years ago, and bought a phone system 5 years ago, I would be thousands ahead of the game if I put together a program myself vs. locking into a long term agreement on just an ok phone system. This program makes zero sense.
And how is this good for the customer? I have been able to put together better deals on my own as well, and I would NEVER put a customer on a 5 year contract for telecom. It's paramount to fraud and flat our raping your customer. Shame on 3COM for even considering this program. I think it's just a gimmick to sell more phone systems since they have never been very good at marketing their products. I pretty much never run across ANYONE with a 3COM system, so it's probably not even worth the breath debating.
Oh, and if you want to see how well power of zero has worked for VAR's, type power of zero into google, and you will find links to sites that no longer exist. That's right, VARS who are out of business. But hey, be daring, joing the successful ranks of 3COM power of zero VAR's if you dare. | |
hannibal64
join:2007-12-20 | reply to TelphoneGuru
Sounds like Stevie Norris has an axe to grind. Interesting how some people fail and then put so much effort into projecting blame upon others for their own lack of performance. This crap is just sour grapes. Just another disgruntled employee. | |
TelphoneGuru
join:2007-09-18
Fort Worth, TX
| Sounds like someone is so confident with what they know that they have no problem putting their name on the public internet, unlike some anonymous users that refuse to face reality. Sour grapes? I invite anyone to get 50 references from me on this program. None are positive. Why? Yes, it all has to do with Steve Norris not pulling his weight. Please. You know for a fact I put 70-80 hours a week in for a year trying to pull your crap program out of the trash. It's about time you took some of my suggestions for your program, but alas too late.
Just another disgruntled employee? For Whom? Certainly not you. And do please share with us someone, anyone, a VAR who is experiencing a tremendous amount of success with this program. You won't because you can't. 3COM hasn't been able to sell it. And you won't EVER post your own name here because you are flat out ashamed to be associated with this program and your own personal failure running it. I have no such issues, so you tell me who is either a wuss or sour grapes. Nice attempt at trying to change the topic.
Also, perhaps you noticed I was one of several posters who have no positive news to share. Where are all the happy people to dispute the facts of how successful the program is? As of today, a lawyer is preparing a class action lawsuit against 3COM (A la Norvergence), the primary lender DLL, and others. I will enjoy watching you and all of your colleagues squirm in court, or at least hearing about it. 3COM will unfortunately deserve what it gets on this one. It was avoidable, but unfortunately, you like others were part of the problem. You were presented the issues at hand, but chose to ignore them or gloss them over. Now you have a very expensive paperweight on your desk, a HUGE hole on your resume, and your conscience knawing at you since you did not step up and do the right thing.
Please, go on spouting the company line. It's done you well so far. Job security over moral integrity eh? | |
Phone_Guy
join:2007-10-29
Riverside, CA
| Everyone suing everyone. Lovely. Just what telecom needs. I'll actually be observing this with some interest since I had two customers who did the program. Their service has been beyond horrible, but if the #$%& hits the fan, I may convert them yet. | |
Reality check
@swbell.net
| reply to TelphoneGuru
Capital4 insolvency and their legacy portfolio is the source of any negative history with the program, not 3Com. Clearly, there's a lot of competitive resellers on this site, poised to pile on. 3Com is not the issue if you truly know the history behind this old story. | |
POZ SUKS
join:2008-04-14 | FTG Inc out of CT is still offering POZ to its customers. The program "seems" to be a good idea but FTG has NO clue what they are doing. The boys at Capital 4 seem lost as well. | |
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