So I'm setting up a new department and doing some shopping for our new 4 developer team. I need to get some switches so that each member has at least 2 ethernet ports +1 with POE for an IP phone (1 port for laptop, 1 for special hardware we're developing software for, 1 for a Cisco IP Phone 7942), and I was recommended by our main IT guy to get the CISCO C2960PD-8TT-L which is a ~$500 USD switch which has console management which we don't need. That recommendation came from a higher upper who sent an email recommending that switch upon seeing hubs being used all over (probably causing trouble in our network).
For our team of 4 people, I'm thinking on getting the Netgear ProSafe GS108P instead and then hook up four 4-port Netgear FS105, 1 for each team member. This would be ~$240 USD in switches that are already used in another of our offices instead of ~$1000 USD in two high 8-port switches that look like overkill to me.
Am I overlooking something, or the Cisco switches really are overkill for our software developer team?.