[Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.

Thu Feb 17 06:54:23 MST 2005

Mike, Jim, Alex and all.

Interesting discussions.....Cant disagree with any of them. At
smecommunitiesonline we are working towards delivering that "productization"
coupled with a cohesive business and financial model. We are currently
developing our delivery portfolio.

We have a development server operational and are hard at testing. We are
also in discussions with a few sme's across the UK about utilising *Asterisk
over proprietary PABX and have one organisation who are keen to make the
switch. For them the economics are easy to see............They have a quote
of L25k from their PABX Supplier to upgrade their existing platform (which
will incorporate a certain amount of VoIP) with ongoing support and
maintenance costs of L4k per annum. We are offering then consultancy at the
moment completing scope and design work including costing of purchase,
installing and configuring the Asterisk solution at a fraction of the cost
of proprietary.

Bottom line is........We are progressively marketing the use of Asterisk and
consultancy across the UK, Europe and hopefully beyond. Because we are only
a small organisation we are looking for like minded technically experienced
organisations and individuals with the right skill sets to work on
collaborative projects.

This list is a great forum for open and free exchange of views. However, for
those looking for the business advantage collaboration seems the way to go.
We would be interested to hear from anyone with views on such collaboration
on future projects.

Anyone interested, drop me a mail.

Cheers and Wassail
Allan Allsopp
smecommunitiesonline
mob: 07754 231 882
allan.allsopp at sme-online.net
www.sme-online.net

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Alex Pui
Sent: 17 February 2005 08:34
To: jim at vanmeggelen.ca; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk
Discussion'; 'Mike Dent'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.

Jim,

I totally agree with what you said here. I guess we need to find out what
are Asterisk problems at this point of time and we can work together to
solve it. In my experience it is not much a "product" problem, it is a
"productization" problem.

To learn how to install Asterisk is fun, but to use Asterisk to make money
it is difficult, problems are :
1. There is no perceived value as a total solution or package at the right
size. Unless we can build such value perception for the customers in the
mass market, that is people can easily compare a Cisco model with Asterisk
and then they can compare how much they will have to pay for Cisco and now
how "Less" they need to pay for Asterisk consultant and also the benefits,
we will have no point to say we charge $60 or $100 per hour as nobody can
link the cost and the value together.

2. The education process to customers are killing. Yes, open source is free,
knowledge to set up the system is not, and the cost of education to the
customer about this knowledge will kill most of our business.

Therefore we need to work together to solve these problems (or some other
problems if you want to share) then we can fly. There are not much
successful cases we are hiding, Asterisk business is a lot of fun and
attractive but not that profitable unless someone wants to correct me.

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Van Meggelen
Sent: February 17, 2005 12:08 AM
To: 'Mike Dent'; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.

asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking in to the possibility of starting to sell a small
> Asterisk installation in to one or two small businesses to
> test the waters in my area, north west UK.
>
> Are others doing similar things on a small scale? I currently
> do not have a lot of investment to  plough in to this
> business at the moment so things would have to be done within
> my current financial constraints. I have a full time job at
> present which I plan to leave in 8 months time if all goes to plan.
>
> Now I realise people are not going to disclose their business
> winning secrets but I'd welcome any friendly advise from
> others who have done this or are doing it at present.
>
> (I have linux/unix experience going back to 1992 but only
> about 3 months * experience, with a server at home running 2
> analogue lines and 4 extensions.)

As far as I'm concerned, open-source telephony is going to turn the
world of enterprise telecom on it's ear. I've worked in that business
for over 15 years, on equipment and networks of all shapes and sizes,
and I've never seen anything like Asterisk.

This is extremely disruptive technology, in the same way the IBM PC was
in the early 80s, or Linux through the 90s.

Check out this article for some thought-provoking ideas on the future:

http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/paradigmshift_0504.html

When I talk to customers, the amount of hate they have for the likes of
Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and such is shocking. The horrible service they
have come to expect from their telecom providers is hard to believe. The
problem, as I see it, is that the technology that exists simply does not
allow service providers to truly solve their customers' communication
challenges. It's too closed. Too proprietary. Too inflexible.

Asterisk in and of itself does nothing. But the service that can be
provided to one's customers, using Asterisk, is approaching miraculous.
Even as raw as it is, Asterisk is amazing. This is so much like the
evolution of the web. We started with text-based browsers, then Mosaic
made it all graphical. Now, we have a billion different ways of making
websites, and each site is a total custom job. This is the potential of
open-source telephony. Will Asterisk still be the dominant engine in ten
years? We just don't know. but rest assured that whatever succeeds it
will be better, not worse. And the chances of it coming out of the labs
at any of the telecom giants is zero. It's going to take them a few
years just to get it, never mind provide a response. Some will go
bankrupt, those that survive will embrace the new paradigm (the idea of
IBM, Novell and the like embracing Linux even five years ago was
ridiculous).

Just don't expect it to be easy. This is a revolution! (a real one this
time). The industry will begin to attack Asterisk soon. Expect to see
much FUD coming from the big boys, just as soon as they perceive the
threat, 'cause FUD is all they've got.

To parapharse Ghandi: "First they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win"

Cheers,

Jim.

--
Jim Van Meggelen
jim at vanmeggelen.ca

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