Res: [asterisk-biz] Digium, Polycom, and Netxusa Cutting Us Out?!?

[Steve Totaro]

Flavio Goncalves wrote:
>
> My one minute:
>
>  
>
> The only thing that does not change is our value into the customer. 
> This is the only thing we have to sell, our value as trusted 
> consultants and advisors. One thing that some companies don't realize 
> is that service business does not scale, it doesn't mind if it is 
> NextUSA, Microsoft or Cisco. You will probably find higher skilled 
> professionals for a better price that does not work for the 
> manufacturer. The administrative costs and margins over service are 
> prohibitive and talent is very hard to find. Initial investments for 
> starting a "service and support” business are very low. That's why 
> there are thousands of VARs around the globe. A wise company would do 
> everything to get the trust and sympathy from this "Army", some of 
> them with more than 20 years of business experience. Any software or 
> hardware manufacturer, who gives a differentiated condition to a 
> single company, is simply shooting their own feet. The biggest issue 
> is how this works with an open source developer like Digium? What are 
> their revenue models? Are we partners or competitors? The "open source 
> manufacturer model" is new, confuse and cannot be compared to the 
> traditional suppliers like Cisco and 3Com. Some of us are getting a 
> good money with Asterisk without giving much back to Digium. Am I wrong?
>
>  
>
> Flavio
>
Flavio,

I have to make this brief  because today I have to cut over to an 
Asterisk system and I do not wish to be late.

Your last statement really does make me think.  Here is are what I see 
as the variables (from my perspective of course). 

A good portion of the Asterisk code base was not written by Digium.  I 
have no idea what percentage but I am under the impression that most of 
the current code has come from the community.  The people who decided to 
fax away any claim on their contributions.  Asterisk would be nowhere 
without being OpenSource, creating a fostering community of excited 
developers and just as importantly users and implementors. 

The original hardware designs came from the Zapata Telephony movement 
(Torment II) and someone figured out how to take a modem with the 
correct chipset and make it into an FXO which could be had for $9 but I 
purchased for $100 since I supported Digium.  The four port card is, 
from my understanding, the reference design and is why there are so many 
Chinese knock-offs.

I have personally bought a few tens of thousands of dollars worth of 
Digium hardware and experienced alot of pain having to repeatedly tune a 
new deployment.  This cost Asterisk and me some money (time) and 
reputation.  Just when I found the right set of hardware for a 
completely happy PBX, Sangoma came on the scene.  I read the users list 
daily and more and more people came on the list saying that Sangoma 
played nice with all hardware, none of the dreaded IRQ issues, etc.

I called ABP or whoever and got a quote for a four port T1 card, it was 
considerably more expensive than Digium.  Later I had some questions so 
I emailed Sangoma directly.  Their VP or sales called me back, answered 
my questions and then told me that I could buy directly from them (note, 
Digium sells to NetxUSA which in turn *may* sell to you if you are 
"approved") at a significantly reduced rate.  I have had nothing but 
clean installs using Sangoma products.  They even shipped the card net30 
with no credit agreement.  They then shipped seven more cards at the 
same deal.

Now, I am sure with the market moving drastically to Sangoma, Digium 
felt the heat and fixed issues that it had before blamed on other 
hardware.  "Well that server does not allow you to set IRQs in Bios, try 
another", was not cutting it since someone had a better solution.  I bet 
Digium hardware is on par with Sangoma now but I may or may not find 
that out because I have been well served by Sangoma.

Digium wants to have it's cake and eat it too.  Digium and Asterisk are 
two separate but intertwined entities.  Asterisk claims to work with 
everything and it does for the most part.  What they are doing now is 
trying to lock people into using only Digium products with Asterisk.  
Well, they do have to make money, I understand that.  But they also have 
to make a competitive product line without tons of bugs.  If there are 
bugs, answers such as "try another motherboard" are not acceptable.  
Forcing people to commit to use only Digium is the wrong approach.  Make 
better hardware and a good price is the only approach.  The head is 
saying, yes we play nice with everyone's offerings but the "strong arm" 
is saying but if you want to be "approved" or in the "clique" you will 
swear allegiance.

What I have done for Asterisk may not be measured in value but what is 
it worth that CSC is using it some situations because I was 
subcontracted to set up a phone system, they are huge and fully aware of 
Asterisk now.  How about the State Dept?  What about various US 
embassies around the world using Asterisk?  What hae I given back, not 
sure.  How am I being rewarded, time will tell.

Finally, let's just call the "AsteriskNOW" platform "DigiumNOW and 
forever". 

I need to get out the door to install this little system, yes, it uses a 
Digium TDM400P with four FXOs, and yes, the card was bad and I need to 
return to replace the mainboard, not the FXO daughterboard so this post 
was a little hasty, more to come....

Thanks,
Steve