About Phil
Phil is the President and founder of Denton Business Solutions. He's had a fascination with technology for as long as he can remember and he now delights in helping clients select, deploy, and optimize network infrastructure and information technology solutions that complement and enhance their businesses. When he's not helping his clients boost their bottom line, Phil enjoys cooking, spoiling his dog, Sophie; and doing Crossfit. You can connect with Phil on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.
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No, the SPA302 is not Compatible with the UC300 or UC500 (SBCS)
I know, I know – it’s featured on the Cisco SMB products homepage (seen below), it’s clearly listed as a 300-series SPA phone right next to the SPA301 and SPA303, but… unlike its siblings the “Cisco SPA302 Multi-Line DECT Handset” will not work with either the UC320W or the Cisco Smart Business Communications System (“SBCS”). There are determined engineers out there who have duct-taped together a working integration but a) it’s a quite tedious and b) it’s not supported by Cisco TAC so I can’t recommend forcing the SPA302 into a solution using the Cisco small business phone systems.
http://www.cisco.com/go/smb
Why won’t it work?
Cisco SPA302D Wireless Phone
The SPA302 doesn’t use the same type of wireless network as laptops and smartphones. It uses a protocol called “DECT,” which is like a modern version of the 900MHz cordless phones that have been available since the mid-1990s. Without the ability to communicate with other IP-enabled devices such as the Cisco UC300 or UC500 series small business phone systems, it can’t be configured by or used with them.
Alternatives to the SPA302
If you’re looking for a wireless phone to work with the UC320W your best option at the time of this writing, unfortunately, is to use a regular analog cordless phone attached to one of the four FXS ports on the UC320W chassis.
If you need a wireless phone for the Cisco SBCS then go for either the Cisco 7925 or Cisco 7926 wireless IP phones. The only difference between the two is the 7926 has a two-dimensional barcode scanner, while the 7925 does not. The only downside to the 7900 series wireless IP phones is they are a little pricey for the SMB market. I think the last 7925 “kit” (phone, battery, charger, and Cisco SMARTNet) I sold came out to around $600.
If you were wanting the SPA302 to work with a Cisco phone system I hate to have been the bearer of bad news but hopefully you found this article before ordering any hardware. Honestly, I wish Cisco had called this device the “SPA402″ to avoid the compatibility confusion but it is what it is.
Either way, thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you still need help figuring out what phone will work best for your environment feel free to contact me. I’ll probably write a more in-depth review of the SPA302 and SPA232 in the near future so click the “Like” button on the right to see when that comes out. Just out of curiosity, have you found any stand-out cordless phones to use with a UC300 or UC500? If so please let me and your fellow engineers know in the comments below!
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Life Before Computers
While Denton Business Solutions is only a few years old, most of our clients have existed for decades or longer. Sure, most of those clients now depend on technology to stay competitive but we realize their businesses haven’t always depended on computers…
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Back to Work…
Well folks, it was a nice relaxing Easter weekend here at DBS. We tried to work from home over the weekend but for some reason our computers just didn’t seem to work…
If you’re curious what you’re looking at, this is “Sophie”, the office mascot. She’s a 4.5 pound mutt in desperate need of a haircut. Happy Monday Funday!
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Olds, Ford and Sloan: The Automobile Upstarts
Most Americans would tell you the first American automobile was the Model T. Untrue. John William Lambert created the “Buckeye gasoline buggy” more than a decade before the Model T was invented. Why then does no one know who John Lambert is? Because the Buckeye buggy never sold! In fact, even if he was the first American to build an automobile, it was the pioneers below who created the industry as we know it. To jump to the lessons we can learn from them skip to the conclusions.
Ransom E. Olds
An Oldsmobile Curved Dash, circa 1904
As soon as Karl Benz invented his automobile in Germany in 1885 there was a flurry of effort in the United States to duplicate his invention. While he was not the first American to sell an automobile, Ransom Olds still saw an opportunity. At a time when automobile companies were manufacturing their vehicles by hand Olds gathered capital, built a factory, and adopted mass production techniques to manufacture his Oldsmobiles. By 1901, just four years after its founding, Oldmobile was producing 2500 automobiles a year, making it the first obvious leader of the American automobile market.
Henry Ford
A 1927 Ford Model T. Black, of course.
I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces. -Henry Ford
In 1908. a time of Oldsmobile’s dominance, Ford began to do just that. The Ford Motor Company produced the first Model T with an initial price tag of $850 but over the course of the next 20 years used lean manufacturing and moving assembly lines to drive the price down to only $260 (about $5000 today). As a result of Ford’s rock-bottom prices, the Ford Motor Company soon owned 50% of the global automobile market and had more than 10 million vehicles on the road.
Alfred Sloan
Buick’s first automobile – A 1908 Model F
Just when the Ford Company had dominated the automobile market, Alfred Sloan, then President of General Motors turned the market upside-down. While the Model T was affordable and accessible, Sloan realized that consumers needed more choices in the market. He organized General Motors into a progression of five brands from the value-oriented Chevrolet up to the premium Cadillac so consumers could stay in the GM “family” as their age and preferences (and income level) changed. Additionally, Sloan pioneered annual style changes to the GM vehicles, introducing a sense of novelty to new cars that was previously non-existent.
In short, due to Henry Ford’s resistance to change (he was once quoted as saying consumers can “have any color he wants as long as it is black”), GM’s new approach to the automobile market captured new customers like never before and rocketed GM to the top of the automobile sales charts, a position GM enjoyed until the recent economic collapse began in 2007.
Conclusions
The men described here changed the world in which we live and while they made their millions a century ago we can still learn several lessons that can be applied today:
- Marketing is key. You can invent the greatest product in the world but unless consumers know about it they can’t buy it! It’s tempting to sink all your funds into development but make sure you budget sufficiently for marketing that will put your company in front of its target consumers.
- Go for mass market. There is certainly money to be made by selling to niche markets but it’s much more risky. If you indeed have a niche product, find ways to position it with overlapping or adjacent consumer groups to increase its marketability.
- Don’t be afraid to attack the incumbent. Each of the automakers here left their mark on the industry by taking down the incumbent. Unlike them, you don’t need heaps of capital to create a revolutionary product. If you don’t believe me, just look at Craigslist, Skype, or Hulu.
- Treat your employees well. Henry Ford paid his employees much more than his competition. As a result, the Ford Motor Company had drastically reduced turnover, decreased training time, and much more innovation coming from the shop floor. If you look out for your people, they will look out for you.
- Listen to your Consumers. The main reason General Motors was able to steal the market from Ford was due to Ford’s resistance to change. If you want to develop a winning product or service, don’t develop in a bubble. Listen to your consumers and include their feedback in your design!
Have we missed anything here? What else have the auto giants taught us? Leave a comment below and let us know and always, if you enjoyed the article click the “Like” button below!
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Poll Results: How Much Time do you Spend on Your Computer at Work?
Thanks to everyone who completed our poll this week. We had a whopping 40 responses! We found that our respondents spend an average of 7.85 hours on the computer each day, when we assume the 10+ hours/day crowd spends 12 hours on the computer. The most common amount of time spent on the computer was 7-8 hours which lines up with the 7.85-hour average across the whole pool of respondents.
| Place | Amount of Time | Number of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 – 8 hours | 16 |
| 2 | > 10 hours | 10 |
| 3 | 5 – 6 hours | 9 |
| 4 | 9 – 10 hours | 2 |
| 5 | < 2 hours | 2 |
| 6 | 3 – 4 hours | 1 |
Since our average respondent spends only NINE MINUTES of an 8-hour workday away from his or her computer, I strongly encourage you to find some ways to break the monotony. A good place to start is to drink (more) water. Not only does staying hydrated maximize your brain power, but if you’re drinking the right amount of water during the day you’ll be forced to take breaks to refill your bottle and to empty your… self. Just find yourself a BPA-free bottle and fill it when you get to work. You’ll be surprised how much water you drink during the day if you have it within arm’s reach.
I’m not here to preach the hydration gospel to you, but when I saw the poll results I was a little worried about you guys. Obviously you’re all hard workers but make sure you take some time out for yourselves as well! Thanks again for answering our poll and reading this followup. Please feel free to leave your best workplace health tips in the comments below!
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How Not to Get Repeat Business
The economy has been rough for the past few years and we’ve all had to find ways to become more efficient and to drive more customers to our business. Kevin Andrew Lutes, a computer repairman (formerly of 2121 Cypress Road, Bethlehem, PA) may have come up with the worst idea for business development yet.
According to court documents:
This young man visited a client he’d done work for in the past by breaking into their office in the middle of the night. He then proceeded to steal a hard drive out of one of their computers and waited for his client to call him for help. Sure enough, they did end up calling and he assured them that he could recover the data despite the missing hard drive. He then showed up at the client’s office a few days later having completed the miracle data recovery and charged them a hefty $2000 fee for the 40 hours of data recovery services he performed (when in reality he just gave them their own hard drive back).
I don’t know for sure if this is the computer in question but it’s been in every article about Mr. Lutes I’ve found.
Luckily, his client called the computer manufacturer to verify the young man’s claims and got confirmation that there’s no way to perform data recovery on a PC when the hard drive is missing (barring an online backup service of course). As a result, the client called the Police and shortly into the investigation the Police found video footage of Lutes’ vehicle parked outside his client’s building the night of the break-in, complete with “Computer Repair” decal. Mr. Lutes ended up being charged with theft and receiving stolen property, and was arraigned and sent to prison under a $10,000 bail.
Lesson learned here? There are lots of snake oil salesmen in IT. Because IT is a fairly complex field, many business owners and decision makers can become intimidated by a salesman who throws out a lot of acronyms and technical mumbo-jumbo sprinkled with positive-sounding business jargon like “synergy” and “the cloud”. Before you hire someone, especially for a position of trust such as an IT role, do yourself and your company a favor and at least Google the individual or company in question. If you look for “Kevin Lutes Bethlehem PA” you’ll see an article about the alleged theft on the first page of search results*. If you look for Kevin Lutes on Facebook you’ll find a gentleman with that name still living in Bethlehem, PA who claims to have studied “Comuter Technology” and who in the “About Me” section of his Facebook profile* says:
I am an easy going, go with the flow kinda dude, whatever happens, happens. like i say in my quote, when all else fail just say f**k it.
That was a direct quote, except for the asterisks I replaced his actual letters with. I’m not personally a fan of requiring job applicants to hand over passwords to social media accounts as part of the employment process but if I can find negative information about a job applicant within five minutes of Googling their name then I would at least know to ask further questions. Have you come across any people with questionable morals in your time working in or with IT people? Let us know in the comments below.
*We’re not saying this is the guy who allegedly committed these crimes. We’re just saying we found a computer repairman in Bethlehem PA who shares the same name as this alleged criminal and the question would bear further scrutiny.
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