[Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.

Thu Feb 17 07:27:20 MST 2005

Allan,

I run a consultancy business, doing (amongst other things) VoIP 
consulting, mostly Asterisk and Cisco. I'm based in Northern Ireland, 
but work with customers worldwide, both remotely and onsite.

If you're looking for partners or subcontractors, I'd like to offer my 
services. I have significant experience rolling out production telephony 
systems. I've worked in a lead technical role on some of the world's 
largest VoIP and Unified Messaging projects for IBM and MCI, along with 
many other smaller projects.

Take a look at my website for the types of products I work with:

http://integrics.com/
http://integrics.com/people/acunningham/

and drop me an email or phone me if you'd like to discuss this further.

Alistair Cunningham,
Integrics Ltd,
Telephony, Database, Unix consulting worldwide
+44 (0)7870 699 479
http://integrics.com/

Allan B. Allsopp wrote:
> 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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