[Asterisk-biz] Enterprise market

[Michael at Matraex.com]

Main Strength, opensource
Main Weakness, opensource/linux

How do you mean?

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Ron Arts
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 4:03 PM
To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-biz] Enterprise market


Patrick wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-01-14 at 09:28 +0100, Olivier Krief wrote:
> 
>>Hello,
>> 
>>As a new reader of this mailing list, I feel that Asterisk is mostly 
>>used by IP Telephony Service Providers to serve consumer or business 
>>markets.
>> 
>>Do you have proven and successfully experience using Asterisk as an 
>>Entreprise PBX ? What are the main strengths and weaknesses of this 
>>software compared to commercial ones (from Alcatel, Nortel, Cisco) ?
> 

Hi,

Our company is marketing exactly such a product. It's
called the Astium:

www.neonova.nl

(I'm sorry the site's in dutch, we're currently working
on an English version, ETA two weeks).

Main strengths:
- opensource
- versatile
- pretty cheap compared to you-know-who
- service contracts/support available
- extensive manuals (english)
- phone provisioning built-in (currently supports
   grandstream, SNOM, Cisco, Polycom, and soft-phones)
- multi-tenanting
- multi-language (prompts too)
- totally web based config, so can be hosted, and you
   don't need a consultant for every turn you make.

Main weaknesses
- not a big brand
- our version is currently focused on SME only
- opensource/linux
- suboptimal windows integration.

Regards,
Ron Arts

> 
> Welcome Olivier. Whatever you are going to do give Asterisk a shot. It

> is definitely worth the try if only to have a cool PBX at home. Let me

> throw in my ideas:
> 
> Advantages:
> * way cheaper than Alcatel, Nortel, Cisco
> * way more flexible
> * way more features. It can do pretty much anything you want it to do.
>   If it doesn't then post a bounty or hire someone from the community
to
>   code it for you (releasing it back to the community is most
>   appreciated)
> * way more scalable
> * very stable (try keeping Cisco's NT4 box..er..CallManager in the air
>   for a decent time (ching, reboot!)
> * service contracts/support readily available
> * runs on common of the shelf (quality) hardware (COTS)
> * interface cards available from different sources
> * compatible with many phones
> * ready-made end-user solutions available
> * dedicated, enthousiastic community willing to help
> * from what I can see Digium is 120% committed to evolve Asterisk into
>   a major disruptive technology that customers will benefit from. How
>   many commercial solutions do you know where the lead developer
commits
>   code to cvs from a plane: http://www.sineapps.com/news.php?rssid=456
> 
> Downside:
> * learning curve - negated by the availability of skilled consultants
>   who will deliver anything you want
> * feature difference between the stable 1.0.3/1.0.4 release and HEAD
>   is significant. Imho Asterisk could use a bit more "release often"
> * it's Open Source and runs on Linux, FreeBSD etc. Your bosses may not
>   like or understand that (no one ever got fired for buying Cisco,
>   Microsoft, IBM etc.). It's all in the way you present it...
> 
> If you have any more questions also join #asterisk on 
> irc.freenode.net.
> 
> Regards,
> Patrick
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Biz mailing list
> Asterisk-Biz at lists.digium.com 
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz


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