[asterisk-biz] View from a side competitor

Sat Feb 17 06:12:20 MST 2007

Hi Mitul and Garrett,

Mitual I personally read, that when you used the term 'we' you meant
Fonality and not yourself or you representing Fonality so your choice of
description was fine.

As someone who has been on both side of the seller/channel relationship
and has set up distribution agreements for a number of different
companies I understand how hard it is both for Fonality and for people
who are considering becoming their reseller/partners.

There is always a balance between potential profitability and actually
encouraging potential partners to bring you in to deals.

This will always have a direct output on how quickly a company or
technology grows.

Regarding Fonality specifically, I don't see why they shouldn't offer an
ongoing percentage of all sales in the future even if you as an agent
are to step aside after during the first sale.

Fonailty wouldn't have been in the account in the first place to make
ongoing sales if you the reseller didn't make that initial introduction.
So not allowing for a percentage of all ongoing sales as a 'cost of
doing business'  is a little short sited.

In the past I've represented a number of companies including
Salesforce.com when they were first getting started and nobody knew who
they were or even trusted ASP's as a business tool.

Apart from the fact that it is a great product I recommended them to
everyone I knew. Especially as every quarter I get a check from them for
clients I sold them into years ago. I may have had nothing to do with
either Salesforce.com or the client for a number of years and you may
feel why does 'Dean' feel entitled to these residual checks?

Well because if you don't think that I still recommend Salesforce.com as
a crm to anyone who asks - then you are kidding yourself.

With Fonality only paying a single check once....in a few years from now
who do you think their resellers are going to remember? Who ever paid
them last that's who.

This is just my personal opinion and I don't represent either a
potential reseller or Fonality, but if I was managing their
international expansion this would be my reccomendations to future
rollouts.

P.S> :)

Of course with regards to www.Mexuar.com we are a little different in
that everyone can become a Mexuar reseller. 

All asterisk system integrators can buy a Mexuar Corraleta SDK license
for $US2,000 and sell it to their client, we make no recommendations or
enforcement on what price this is passed on to the client. Check out
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Mexuar 

If you don't know what Mexuar is check out
http://www.mexuar.com/downloads/Level1Products/CorraletaDemoSound.swf

If you are in the Americas, Asia or Australia contact me,
dean at mexuar.com
If you are in UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa contact charles at mexuar.com

Regards,

Dean Collins
Cognation Pty Ltd
dean at cognation.net
+1-212-203-4357 Ph
+1-917-207-3420 Mb

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-biz-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Mitul Limbani
> Sent: Saturday, 17 February 2007 7:25 AM
> To: asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
> Subject: RE: [asterisk-biz] View from a side competitor
> 
> Garrett,
> 
> Well, I specifically dont want to point fingers to anyone directly
> thats the reason of writing "we" as in generic terms.
> If you recollect my statement "Thats the way it is."
> 
> I dont want to comment any further on this, intelligent ppl on the
list
> would get the gist of what i said :)
> 
> By no means I want to pinpoint your/voipsupply/fonality's terms of
business.
> 
> Thanks & Regards,
> Mitul Limbani,
> Founder & CEO,
> Enterux Solutions,
> The Enterprise Linux Company (TM),
> www.enterux.com
> 
> Quoting Garrett Smith <gsmith at voipsupply.com>:
> 
> > Mitul - you are saying "we" as if you work for or are a direct
> > representative of fonality, which you are not.
> >
> > I'd be careful how you state your responses. I am sure you would not
> > want me using "we" when describing anything surrounding your
company.
> >
> > Currently, fonality's esellr program is more along the lines of an
> > agent program - you generate a lead and or close the sale, and
> > fonality pays you a one time comission. Since fonality is not a
> > service provider, there is still a chance for consultants, etc to
> > make a residual by selling voice and data through a sp's agent/
> > reseller program.
> >
> > While fonality is working on changing their model to better
> > accomodate those resellers who fancy a relationship similar to
legacy
> > phone system manufacturers, they are not there yet.
> >
> > My suggesstion, if you want to "own" the customer and sell into with
> > additional products check out switchvox. Not that fonality is bad,
> > its just not for everyone.
> >
> > Note: we are a fonality channel partner.
> >
> > Garrett
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: "Mitul Limbani" <mitul at enterux.com>
> > To: "asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com" <asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com>
> > Sent: 2/17/2007 12:29 AM
> > Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] View from a side competitor
> >
> > Kim,
> >
> > Quoting "Kim C. Callis" <kim.callis at gmail.com>:
> >
> >> I was reading over the Reseller deal with Fonality, and after
reading it
> >> over, I found that it didn't seem beneficial. Maybe I am
mis-reading what
> >> they are offering, and if someone has has dealing with Fonality,
maybe that
> >> person or persons can clarify. If I am reading this correctly,
after a
> >> consultant type locks down the sale of Fonality products to the
client, the
> >> consultant gets more of less bumped out of residual dealing with
the client.
> >> Fonality sells and guarantees the hardware, provides SLA, and
handles all of
> >> future sales. Effectively, the consultant does the grunt work, and
then is
> >> kicked to the curb once the ink dries on the sales contract.
> >>
> >> Does that sound about right, or am I misreading what they are
offering?
> >
> > Thats the way it is.
> > In short, you bring in the first customer and we pay you a small
amount
> > as percentage and then since we got all the details of decision
makers
> > @ customer end, we wont need you :)
> > We shall make all the future sales and you dont get to know or get
any
> > percentage of any future sales we make with the customer.
> >
> > Thanks & Regards,
> > Mitul Limbani,
> > Founder & CEO,
> > Enterux Solutions,
> > The Enterprise Linux Company (TM),
> > www.enterux.com
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