[hydra-dev] Still confused, but at a higher level

[Olle E. Johansson]

12 apr 2010 kl. 17.46 skrev Terry Wilson:

>>> I think this is probably why Digium has said every chance it can that "This is not Asterisk 2.0". I imagine they will continue saying that.
>> And everyone will believe it's just about protecting your business and not the truth...
> 
> ...
>>> I think the "or something separate" is the plan. I can't imagine Digium would *ever* promote/market Hydra as Asterisk 2.0. Any time I have ever heard them talk about it, they have been very up front that it is definitely not Asterisk 2.0. With its lack of features upon launch, I don't think anyone would ever be confused on that point, either.
>> 
>> Believe me, it's very hard to fool your customers.
> 
> 
> It isn't about fooling anyone. Hydra will not and physically can not be a replacement for Asterisk for many many years if ever. I think you are ignoring the fact that if something isn't marketed as Asterisk 2.0 and is specifically marketed as *not* being Asterisk 2.0 and is released with only a small fraction of the features of Asterisk 1.x, that people aren't going to be thinking "Oh, this is Asterisk 2.0. I think I'll replace my Asterisk 1.x boxes with it." I just don't see how that could ever hurt the existing Asterisk business. No one in their right mind would think of "moving off of Asterisk" to Hydra unless Hydra could do everything that they want. And if or when that happens, no amount of marketing will matter. People will use Hydra for what it can do.  Also, if Hydra does "take over", it would be an extremely gradual process as features that matter to particular people are slowly developed. I mean, hey, there is still a significant number of Asterisk 1.2 boxes out the
> re. I've worked at places with 20 year old phone systems.
> 
>> I'm not talking about product design, Terry. I am talking about how we should launch the first version without hurting the existing Asterisk business.
>> Because that is what's going to happen with the presentation that was shown to us.
> 
> The presentation was showing the possibilities that the design would allow. Of course there will be overlap in what Asterisk and Hydra will be able to do. It would be silly to design something that couldn't handle things that Asterisk can do. I understand what you are saying, I just disagree that existing Asterisk business will be hurt (having run a few of them myself). With the extremely long time it would take for the community to develop feature parity with Asterisk I just don't see it as a problem as long as Digium isn't promoting Hydra as Asterisk 2.0. 
> 
> The truth of the matter is simple. Hydra has a different focus than Asterisk, will initially lack a lot of the features of Asterisk, but the architecture will probably support those features if they ever happen to be written. Asterisk will continue to be actively developed by Digium. Digium products like Switchbox are built on Asterisk. Almost all of Digium's income is from Asterisk-related stuff. Asterisk will be here for a very, very, very (very, very) long time.

I think we agree to disagree. Regardless of the featureset, I believe any new product will be compared with other offerings on the market to see if the Asterisk dev team and Digium are taking the right direction. Anything released that support phone calls will be seen as Asterisk 2.0. People will understand this and the rest of the market and say "they have a long way to go with the new architecture but these guys claim they're already there"... Tim is on a track I like, separating Hydra completely from Asterisk. But so far, that's the only convincing argument I've seen that I believe has a possibility to get anywhere out there in the wild, wild marketplace.

Don't take me wrong, I do believe we have to create the core platform we need for all the issues that has been described. I just see the marketing aspect very different from the way you perceive it. Almost every week I am in situations where I have to discuss Asterisk's future with potential customers. The impact of a premature Hydra launch will affect these discussions heavily and not in Asterisk's favor. I guess I'm scared, because I do believe it might hurt my business as well as Digium's.

(Disclaimer: I have a hard time separating Edvina's opinions from my own ;-) but that's a personality issue I guess...)

/O