[asterisk-biz] Evariste Systems drops open source, becomes Acme Packet reseller

Mon Apr 1 06:16:39 CDT 2013

Don't feel alone Steve . . I read it few hours ago and had the same sort of, "what the . .",  response. 

Hehe

Good one Alex!

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 1, 2013, at 4:51, Steve Totaro <stotaro at totarotechnologies.com> wrote:

> Wow, been working all night.  First time I got, got in years.  LOL.
> 
> Thanks and good one,
> Steve T
> 
> 
> On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 4:48 AM, Rizwan Kassim <rizwank at geekymedia.com> wrote:
>> I suggest you look at the date.
>> 
>> On Apr 1, 2013 3:47 AM, "Steve Totaro" <stotaro at totarotechnologies.com> wrote:
>>> Best of luck but this is FUD and laughable.  If you want, I can do a point by point, but I am sure most Asterisk folks know what is bunk.  The most laughable. 
>>> 
>>> 500 calls a day, seriously?  No open source that does call recording?  
>>> 
>>> This "Press Release", if you can call it that, does not belong on the list.
>>> 
>>> Thanks
>>> Steve Totaro
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 1:53 AM, Alex Balashov <abalashov at evaristesys.com> wrote:
>>>> For immediate release:
>>>> 
>>>> ATLANTA, GA (1 April 2013)--Evariste Systems LLC, an Atlanta-based
>>>> consultancy specialising in Kamailio-based VoIP infrastructure solutions
>>>> for the ITSP and CLEC market, has announced that beginning in the second
>>>> quarter of 2013, it will be abandoning its Kamailio-based technology
>>>> portfolio to focus on its new role as a preferred VAR (Value Added
>>>> Reseller) for Acme Packet (NASDAQ:APKT).
>>>> 
>>>> "It is with a heavy heart that we abandon five years of Kamailio-oriented
>>>> work and the Canonical SIP Routing Platform product derived from it,"
>>>> said Alex Balashov, the principal of the company.
>>>> 
>>>> "However, the reality is that investment in open-source VoIP technology
>>>> is a dead end.  From a technological point of view, we have lagged very
>>>> badly in meeting the needs of today's sophisticated VoIP market, and it's
>>>> time to cut our losses.  Asterisk, Kamailio, FreeSWITCH--all this stuff
>>>> just hasn't kept up with the pace of evolution of 3GPP, ETSI, and ITU
>>>> standards.  We are tired of saying 'sorry, we don't support IMS or
>>>> H.323' to our resultingly dwindling customer base.  Does anyone
>>>> actually run an all-SIP network?"
>>>> 
>>>> Starting in early April, Evariste will begin providing value-added
>>>> consultancy related to the implementation of the Acme Packet Net-Net
>>>> Session Director.  In Balashov's view, "the Net-Net SD is the only
>>>> product capable of meeting the perimeter security, routing and peering
>>>> needs of today's VoIP service delivery environment."
>>>> 
>>>> Fred Posner, the director of Team Forrest, a Palner Group integration
>>>> and consultancy operation based in the Jacksonville, Florida area,
>>>> agreed:
>>>> 
>>>> "SIP is a tiny piece of the telephony puzzle. The big boys of
>>>> ClueCon [an interoperator revenue-sharing consortium] want DIAMETER-based
>>>> interdomain peering policy control, H.323, MGCP, and IMS.  IMS is pretty
>>>> much how VoIP architecture is done now.  We got out of the Asterisk
>>>> business just in time, right before Mitel swallowed the PBX world.
>>>> I'm glad to see Evariste is finally seeing the light, and I'm sure its
>>>> shareholders are too."
>>>> 
>>>> Posner also believes Evariste's lack of support for TDM interfaces
>>>> accounted for dwindling market share.
>>>> 
>>>> "Have you seen CSRP?  It's SIP in, SIP out.  Real inter-LATA haulers
>>>> and application service providers use TDM and leave SIP for things
>>>> like voicemail.  I can't plug my DS3s into a SIP proxy, so I just
>>>> don't think there was any real demand for the sort of thing they
>>>> were doing."
>>>> 
>>>> Noting Oracle's US$2.5bn acquisition of Acme Packet in early February,
>>>> as well as its more recently announced buyout of Tekelec, a Siris
>>>> Capital Group portfolio company, Balashov remarked: "The obvious
>>>> shift to an Oracle-centric telephony paradigm was a kind of validation,
>>>> if you will, of our decision to unload our dead weight and sign on
>>>> to the revolution in unified communications."
>>>> 
>>>> Sean McCord, of CyCORE Systems, an Atlanta-based software consulting
>>>> house and long-time Evariste creditor, agreed that there was a natural
>>>> synergy between Evariste's shift to Acme Packet and Oracle's dominance
>>>> of telephony infrastructure.
>>>> 
>>>> "Oracle is a forward-thinking telecom pioneer," McCord said.
>>>> "The telephone is Oracle, and Oracle is the telephone."
>>>> 
>>>> Balashov also noted that a tightening regulatory environment and new
>>>> consumer protection rules helped hasten the decision to embrace the
>>>> more professionalised Acme Packet product portfolio.
>>>> 
>>>> John Knight, Senior Engineer at Hendersonville, NC-based Ringfree
>>>> Communications, one of Evariste's oldest channel partners, said:
>>>> "As one of Evariste's long-time disties, we were jittery about exposure
>>>> to CALEA and the QA requirements of large call centers.  We tried to
>>>> make do, but at some point we just had to put the relationship on
>>>> stop.  I'm all in favour of open, but there's just no open-source
>>>> software out there that does call recording, and that's the bottom line
>>>> for us.  In the end, we had to restructure some debt just to get
>>>> bondholders to let us source a proprietary solution on tick."
>>>> 
>>>> In a thematically related move, Evariste will be dropping its heavy
>>>> use of the open-source PostgreSQL database manager for its rating and
>>>> reporting tools.
>>>> 
>>>> "The business case for standardising on Oracle's databases could not be
>>>> clearer.  With Oracle Database 11g's support of warehousing and OLTP,
>>>> the real mystery is why we didn't go there sooner," said Balashov.
>>>> 
>>>> Carlos Alvarez, a director at Televolve, a growing Phoenix-area VoIP
>>>> operator, recently spearheaded a move away from Evariste's PostgreSQL-
>>>> based call detail record (CDR) storage solution to one running atop
>>>> Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
>>>> 
>>>> Alvarez commented: "Evariste had a nice idea, in a cute, David-and-Goliath
>>>> kind of way, but we're processing over five hundred phone calls a day
>>>> now.  Are we really going to store those kinds of volumes in an
>>>> open-source database?  Might as well just put it all in flat text
>>>> files at that point.  Phone service is an uptime game. You can't
>>>> compromise on this stuff. What if someone needs to call 911?"
>>>> 
>>>> Asked to summarise his expectations, Balashov said: "I hope this turns us
>>>> around in a big way.  We were wrong to think that nobody cared about
>>>> stuff like P-CSCFs, or that you could deliver even rudimentary VoIP
>>>> to the premise without the expansive feature set of a comprehensive
>>>> solution like the Net-Net SBC.  I can only hope the market forgives us
>>>> for betting on 'SIP Express Router' and its ilk back in the day, and
>>>> gives us a chance to do it right in round two."
>>>> 
>>>> Fred Posner, of Team Forrest, added: "Besides, if you look at the Git
>>>> repository, Kamailio hasn't had any code contributions in at least five
>>>> years. It seems everyone's figured out this pure SIP stuff is defunct
>>>> and hokey."
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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