[asterisk-biz] Suggestion for an Asterisk Product / Service Database

[Gmail - PC]

I’ve been following this group for a while. I joined because I believe that
Asterisk, and the development community, needs to develop a detailed
understanding of the customer and their needs if it is going to deliver on
the full promise of open-source telephony. It is deep customer understanding
that drives proprietary vendors success – and we all need to develop that
(without access to marketing team that number in the hundreds) if we are
going to compete over the long term.

It reminds me of the early days of Computer Telephony when lots of small
companies were doing innovative applications. Those companies proved the
market for some applications – and they were bought or their applications
copied by the proprietary vendors. Asterisk risks the same fate as the IP
era will be another era of experimentation followed by consolidation.

I see people using the list to announce products or to promote their
products/services. It might be in all of our interests to suggest Digium set
up a product database so that anyone can list an Asterisk product or service
(or note an upgrade) and developers have a single place to search for all
things Asterisk. Heck there could even be some aggregated rating on a
variety of factors (installation, service etc) to help in the selection
process. A weekly update could alert people to new additions – to guide
their thinking and discussions with their customers.

This suggestion might cut down on the amount of email while assuring
developers that their product can be promoted, found, and used by the
Asterisk community.

I apologize if this has been tried and rejected – My object is to somehow
highlight or open source our customer insights rather than see them lost in
the discussion that might be better directed to a database query.

Peter