[Asterisk-biz] First Day On List

[Jason Becker]

Brian P Wolfe wrote:

> I am a consultant and I was looking at Asterisk for
> fun.  However, while working on it, the product seemed
> to have a lot going for it.  I could see a potentially
> huge market for services related to installations,
> conversions, and custom programming.
> 
> I have never worked very much with the telecom
> industry, but I joined this list to see if there was a
> viable market for a small business.

Asterisk in large measure defies productization. It is better to
characterize it as a toolkit than a product. For smaller organizations,
Asterisk can perhaps be narrowly considered as an "IP PBX" and sold and
supported under that paradigm (we are doing it).

Our position has been to produce a standardized implementation of 
Asterisk (in the form of AMP) and to sell professional services around 
it. There are countless "resellers" of AMP-based systems and I think 
what SMB and resellers are attracted to is that it is an implementation 
that is maintainable and easily reproduced (e.g. Asterisk at Home). This is 
perhaps starting to sound like a commercial but I think it is important 
to contrast this strategy to that of implementing custom installs at 
each customer site and maintaining the customizations. Both models have 
their pros & cons - I present both so that you may make an informed 
decision (or perhaps you might elect to execute on both strategies).

> What are some of your thoughts?  Do you see big
> corporations using Asterisk in the future? (Like
> Linux)  Do you see this project as the de-facto
> standard for telecom projects?  (Like JBOSS with J2EE)
>  Who are the competitors?  Could you build a small
> consulting group around Asterisk?  Or is the demand
> not there.  And if not, when if ever will it be here?

With respect, think outside of the box. Create demand - Asterisk is a 
growth engine:

"I predict that over next three years, VoIP using an open-source 
solution, such as Asterisk, will generate more business than the entire 
Linux marketplace today." (Jon "Maddog" Hall, Oct 2004).

Most on this list strongly believe that Asterisk is the Future of 
Telephony (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/asterisk/index.html). The 
general trend in software is that of commoditization. An incumbent's 
response to this trend IMHO boils down to: 1) (Enforcing) Patents; 2) 
Branding or 3) Finding or creating a business model to capitalize on the 
  fact that "software itself is no longer the primary locus of value in 
the computer industry" (Tim O'Reilly).

Regards,

-- 
Jason Becker
Director & CEO
Coalescent Systems Inc.
Enabling Open Source Telephony
403.244.8089
www.coalescentsystems.ca