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In this update: (November 2025)
- Christmas 2025 Planning
- 3CX’s Latest Product News
- Yealink product updates
- Grandstream News
- CommBox product updates
- Fanvil product updates
- Jabra product updates
- Demo equipment
- Case studies – stories sell products!
- Join our LinkedIn UC community to see the news first
Christmas 2025 Planning
We’re about to enter the final few weeks of 2025 and we know it will be a frantic end to what has been a very busy 2025. Our Bluechip Infotech NZ Elves are preparing for a well-deserved rest and our office will be closed from end of day Friday 19th December with the team back on Monday 5th January 2026. Please ensure you order in advance to cover any license renewals you may have that fall during our Annual Shutdown period. For hardware, plan and order ahead as the courier networks get very jammed with deliveries taking longer than normal.
If you have any larger hardware projects coming up, please reach out to us via uc@bluechipit.co.nz so we can ensure that we have enough stock coming in to cover the projects. For many of our suppliers, they’ll shutdown over Christmas/New Year, be back for a short time and then enter the Chinese New Year shutdown as well. It’s imperative if there is something large in Q1 you reach out to us so we can ensure we’re covering your requirements with our orders going in pre-Christmas.
Hopefully, you’re already well underway and working with your 3CX customers to ensure that out of office holiday messages are enabled for them.
January is always a very good time to do health checks on your UC clients and ensure that they have all the latest updates for their software and hardware and that everything is configured the way they need it to be.
3CX Latest Product News
November has been a busy month of announcements from 3CX – summaries are below along with links to the full blog posts. It’s important to stay up-to-date with changes so you can plan ahead for your customers update requirements.
Update 7 – Hotfix: An important Hotfix was issued mid-November to address stability and maintenance issues; it also addresses an issue with setting holiday hours across the end of the year. See the blog here and apply as soon as possible to your live systems on the current v20 update 7.
Update 8 Beta – The AI Chapter
Following the update 8 Alpha at the end of October, the Beta has just launched bringing even more new features. Building from the Alpha, the Beta introduces:
- AI Call Screening across all apps;
- new Boss-Secretary call handling;
- and further enhancements to the AI Receptionist introduced in the Alpha.
Other key additions in the Beta include:
- A major upgrade for shared voicemail for queues and ring groups;
- Department-based sync for M365;
- Phonebook Department Support improvements including multi-tenant;
- And other fixes.
View the full Beta blog here.
To recap the update 8 Alpha blog is here and key highlights are:
- New AI powered receptionist leveraging OpenAI;
- Receptionist Rules – new compact view panel;
- Local transcription service – keep your AI on prem (license size restrictions may apply);
- Stereo recording allowing reliable speaker diarization;
- VoIP Provider/SIP Trunk Checker tool;
- New Power BI Dashboards;
- And much more!
Fair Usage Policy and Pricing: A major talking point during October and November is around the introduction of maximum extensions per license size. These have been reviewed and tweaked during November and information released via the 3CX blog.
This blog from November 11 around enforcement and how 3CX see that it may work is important reading. Please note that this is the current thinking of 3CX, but firm decisions have not yet been made – they will release more information. They’ve also committed to looking at eliminating some of the need for “dummy” extensions and some of those enhancements are in the update 8 Beta. The key dates of note are their announcement date of maximum extensions as part of the Fair Usage Policy which was 22nd October 2025.
Enter 3CX Basic Edition: This past weekend, 3CX has announce the upcoming new edition called Basic which will sit below Pro and Ent/AI. It is not the old Standard Edition; it’s a no-frills telephony option and expected to be priced around 20% lower than the Pro Edition. The focus of the Basic is core telephony so no M365 syncing etc – read the full blog here to see what is and isn’t included. Pricing is indicative only and yet to be confirmed by 3CX – the Basic Edition will launch when update 8 goes live.
- Windows Softphone:
- iOS App:
- Android App:
- Beta = New consultative conference option; department phonebook ready for update 8; supports Android 16; and performance/stability improvements.
- Beta 2 = this update adds full Android Auto support; AI call screening (requires update 8 Alpha); and view shared voicemail in queues/ring groups (requires update 8 Beta).
Partner Targets & End of Year Projects
As the end of the year looms, it’s a very good time to login to your 3CX Partner Portal and check if you’re on track to retain your current partner status or if you’re close to a promotion.
For 2025, the targets for partnership were reduced as the 4-SC revenue is not included in the calculation – the targets this year are:
- Bronze = USD$1k retail value
- Silver = USD$4k retail value (was USD$5k)
- Gold = USD$20k retail value (was USD$25k)
- Platinum = USD$40k retail value (was USD$50k)
- Titanium = USD$125k retail value (was USD$150k)
New business is a key part of the 3CX Partner Program – now is definitely the time to be closing out any new projects for the end of the year. If you need advice or guidance, we’re here to assist you.
Upgrading to v20 – v18 is EOL and no longer supported:
V18 went EOL earlier this year and any instances on Hosted by 3CX were auto-updated at the end of September 2025. If you still have customers on v18, we urge you to create a plan to migrate them up to v20.
Important reminders before upgrading to version 20 – if you do nothing else, please ensure that you read these two very important documents:
- Upgrade from v18 to v20 Configuration Guide – this guide is kept up-to-date by 3CX and part of the Administration Manual.
- Upgrade checklist & FAQ Blog – this was released in early January 2024 to cover all the important steps you must do before proceeding with an upgrade. Remember you’re moving from Debian 10 through to Debian 12 and there is no roll back from the upgrade. License keys move from being v18 to v20 keys as part of this process.
IMPORTANT – SET YOUR SYSTEM OWNER! We’ve had a few cases of customers locking themselves out during the upgrade process and new charges will be incurred if you need 3CX’s support teams help.
V18 went EOL at the end of 2024 and support is no longer available on this version. While v18 update 9b is still able to communicate with the 3CX Activation Servers that time is limited.
Yealink Product News
Introducing the new A25 MeetingBar for small focus rooms. This next-gen Android Bar adds to the Android MeetingBar family. We now have the A50 for medium to large meeting spaces; the ever-popular A40 for the small to medium spaces; and now our A25 with wider field of view for small/focus spaces. The A25 is equipped with an advanced triple-camera system and offers a 151° ultra-wide field of view and a high-definition image. It also integrates a high-quality loudspeaker and an 8x MEMS microphone array. Its built-in intelligent noise reduction technology delivers a superior audio experience for meetings.
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We have stock available now for the new A25 and a special NFR offer for partners wanting to equip their own small spaces. If you’d like to know more reach out to your Partner Success Manager or the UC Team at uc@bluechipit.co.nz
Do you want to know more including how to scope a meeting space with the right equipment? Reach our team on uc@bluechipit.co.nz as we can help. If you’re in Auckland, we can host you at our office to review the technology and even host you with your customers!
SIP Phone news: Introducing the new T7 and T8 desk phone units. These units feature an all-new fashionable design including being very slim and modern; enhanced security; and AI enhanced ultra clear audio with the ability to filter out surrounding noise. The T7 range will in time replace the T4 range and the T8 range replace the T5 range. The first T7 models are now in stock, and we have demo units available for testing. These units have full interop with 3CX for our 3CX customers including being able to be router phones with the SBC on board firmware.
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Headset news: Yealink’s NFR promotion came to an end last quarter – if you do need to equip your team, please reach out to us on uc@bluechipit.co.nz and we’ll see how we can help. If your team use and loves the headsets, it’s much easier to sell and support them for your own clients.
Grandstream news
Grandstream continues to innovate with their product range and their recent webinar around their 2026 roadmap shows this is not slowing down for the upcoming year. The Grandstream solutions fit into their UC or Networking categories.
Their UC covers IP phones, facility access solutions including SIP speakers, and ATAs/Gateways.
The networking covers Wireless Access Points (Wi-Fi 5, 6, and 7), routers, and switches from unmanaged, Layer 2 Lite, Layer 2+, Layer 3, and Layer 3 Aggregation. The range is vast – the networking solutions all feature a standard 3-year warranty.
All of the solutions can be managed from the GDMS Cloud Management portal – what’s even better is their Cloud Management is free and unlimited device numbers.
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If you’d like to know more about any of the Grandstream range – from SIP phones and facility access, to switches, routers and Access Points we can assist, reach our UC Team on uc@bluechipit.co.nz.
CommBox product updates
CommBox’s Commercial Displays are well known in the ANZ market. CommBox have solutions from Meeting Room Displays to Intelligent with Android on board, through to interactive and onwards to large format and LED. We can assist you to find the right solution for your customers’ needs.
If you’d like to know more about the commercial Intelligent Displays or any of the CommBox family of products, reach out to us on uc@bluechipit.co.nz.
Fanvil product updates
Fanvil has a vast array of business SIP phones that meet many different customer requirements. For our 3CX partners many of the units can also act as a router phone (SBC onboard) option. There are limits of how many phones can connect via the various models, but these give a great option for customers with a Cloud hosted instance of 3CX. Below are some of the most popular XU and V series units our customers seek out.
If you’d like to know more around any of the Fanvil units, reach us on uc@bluechipit.co.nz – we have demo stock available for you to take for a test drive!
Jabra product updates
Jabra have you covered for all your headset requirements from wired; Bluetooth wireless; and DECT wireless options. They also have the fantastic video conferencing solutions available for small to medium spaces.
You’ll notice a number of the Jabra SKUs updating to be dual USB A/C SKUs. As the individual USB-A and USB-C stock is exhausted all new stock will be the combined option. A lot of people ask why this is a big deal – when you had to choose between USB-A or USB-C that seems simple but it’s actually not. Most modern PC’s only have a USB-C connection but docking stations still tend to be USB-A so sometimes you want to use one and other times the other. With having the combined ability on the one device this simplifies decisions, it also means that environmentally less stock is needed to move around as well.
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If you’d like to know more about it or any of the Jabra offerings contact our team on uc@bluechipit.co.nz.
Demo equipment
Here at Bluechip Infotech New Zealand, we hold a demo pool of Yealink, Grandstream, Jabra and Fanvil products which are available to borrow. We have IP phones, DECT phones, headsets, WiFi Access Points, facility access and more available to borrow and test. It’s a great way to be able to test out units and see if they meet the needs of your clients. A great way to evaluate new offerings ahead of purchase. If you’d like to borrow anything, please reach out to Megan Twentyman our BDM – UC in the first instance.
Case studies – stories sell products!
We value the opportunity to work with you to produce case studies on success stories with our UC brands. If you have a good story to share, please reach out to us on uc@bluechipit.co.nz and we can work with you. Case studies help sell the products to another customer. Grandstream have an incentive for GWN case studies but for case studies that we produce we’re happy to shout your team a pizza lunch. Get in touch so we can help you grow through sharing successes.
Join our LinkedIn UC community to see news first
Our “Bluechip UC Community” group has been created so our customers quickly get all the latest news. We post regularly and welcome new members to the group. Keep up to date with upcoming Bluechip Infotech New Zealand events, UC-related updates and any other general UC news. Join the LinkedIn group here.
