[Asterisk-biz] Re: Best stable asterisk release for SOHO for 35 users

[Tom Rymes]

On Nov 1, 2005, at 9:56 PM, Greg Boehnlein wrote:

> On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, Tom Rymes wrote:
>
>>> [Deleted]
>>>
>>>> You should take another look at the time saver.  Since that is
>>>> what it
>>>> really is.
>>>
>>> Or I could just buy a commercial product that provides the same
>>> features
>>> and saves even more time. ;)
>>
>> And costs more. It's all a tradeoff, and each business will arrive at
>> a different conclusion.
>
> If you are truly looking out for the customer's best interest, you  
> will
> take into account the amount of time and maintenance that a  
> solution will
> take over the total life of the product. Do you have any concrete
> information that can prove that the savings of $1,000 (Difference  
> between
> SwitchVox Appliance w/ Asterisk vs. White Box w/ Digium Hardware w/  
> A at H)
> is going to save the customer money over a commercially developed  
> product?

This argument runs both ways. Can you prove it isn't cheaper in the  
long run?

> Where are the metrics?

Ditto.

> This is an arguement that people bring up time and time again w/ Free
> Software. Just because it is Free doesn't mean it doesn't cost  
> anything.
> Beleive me.. I've developed and sold Open Source based solutions  
> for over
> 10 years at this point, and I can tell you honestly that there is no
> universal truth. In most cases, with an appropriately educated IT  
> manager,
> Open Source solutions (Asterisk, Linux, Apache, Samba, MySQL) can  
> provide
> value to the organizations, but the single LARGEST expense in any  
> small
> business is PEOPLE! How much time does it take to roll your own versus
> buying a pre-packaged solution? When something breaks, who are you  
> going
> to call for engineering support? Every minute that a small business  
> phone
> system is offline is wasted opportunity and every minute that the IT
> manager of a small business (who is often wearing 7 other hats as  
> well) is
> working on their phone system affects every other area of the  
> business.

No doubt about it. It won't work for everyone, and just because the  
purchase price is $0 doesn't mean it's cheaper or better. (that's why  
we run CommiuGate Pro instead of postfix/qmail/sendmail...) But just  
because it's commercial doesn't mean it's better either. You *DON'T*  
always get what you pay for...

> Let's get practical and look at things from a business perspective. In
> many cases, Open Source, hand rolled solutions can be effective, but
> taking it down to the "It costs more for commercial so OSS is  
> better" is
> not an arguement that will fly. In the end, small business owners  
> want the
> Ronko "Set it and forget it" approach. Technically savvy small  
> businesses
> are the exception...

Sorry, I definitely wasn't trying to make that argument as a blanket  
statement. I was trying to say that that has to be a factor in the  
decision, and different businesses will arrive at different conclusions.

Tom