[Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.

[Alex Pui]

Jim,

I read very carefully on what you said here, and I come to an conclusion
that even your tone sounds we are debating, but in fact we are talking about
the same thing :
You said : This is NOT a safe place to be. Asterisk is an extreme sport -
wear a
helmet!
I said : The productization of Asterisk is not complete, some missing blocks
need to be filled up.

I think both of them are good advice to Mike Dent's question

 " 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."


 In fact, I appreciate that you have found out my intention to be a
distributorship of Talkswitch, or Multitech, yes, I do, but I want that
gateway to be compatible with Asterisk so Asterisk will become a feature
server which is its strength. But please don't twist my business idea, I am
not looking for a scapegoat if the solution does not work for my customer,
there is no such thing of shifting the blame to anybody else in business and
I have been here more than 25 years, I know that very well. 

My experience told me that each "product" should have its position and
Asterisk is not exception and it has not found one yet (correct me if I am
wrong). And I am trying to find one, I didn't say I am right!

Alex


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Van Meggelen [mailto:jim at vanmeggelen.ca] 
Sent: February 17, 2005 11:11 PM
To: alex.pui at act-labs.com; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk
Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Alex Pui
> Sent: February 17, 2005 7:34 PM
> To: 'Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion'
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.
> 
> John,
> 
> "Perceived value" that is great! But who has built that and 
> is there any successful cases (real case) to share? Such as 
> we (Asterisk) beat Cisco in Bank of America, and we 
> (Asterisk) beat Avaya in BMW global sales stores network.... 
> and so on. 

Asterisk went 1.0 less than six months ago. Deals like that take at
least half a year to close (or more). Also, Asterisk is a toolkit. The
company that deploys such a solution may not have any strategic reason
to advertise the fact that they used Asterisk.

I understand your desire for some case studies, but just because you
haven't received any from this list is not sufficient evidence to
conclude that Asterisk is not viable.

> Please note this thread was originated because a 
> post was placed (by Paul??) to ask for sharing successful 
> experience. If people are selling perceived value (I guess 
> that is talking about customer service, expertise of 
> technical know-how, flexibility to serve, each one have their 
> own gameplan) then there should be a lot of stories to share 
> here as that would only increase the overall perceived value 
> of Asterisk and no way to harm our little business.

Maybe, maybe not.

> But since there is non-response, I tried to explain to Paul 
> that we are not ready yet as we have no definitive route to 
> success

"We"? Are you so confident in speaking for all of us?

I would say that most people in this group _do_ have a route to success.

You seem to be claiming that since no one responded to you in the manner
you wanted, that somehow proves something about the value of Asterisk
for business. I fail to see the correlation.

> even though the product Asterisk by itself is great, 
> there might be some missing blocks here such as 
> productization is not complete (for argument sake, service 
> can also be included as a product, incomplete productization 
> is the same way you are trying to sell piece parts of a BMW 
> instead of a whole car). 

Of course there's things missing. But that does not mean it's
incomplete. Find me a PBX that can do what this one does - at any price.

> I am particularly impressed by Jim that he does not need to 
> educate the customer [AP] about Asterisk, almost no exception 
> that all my customers will ask what is the system I am going 
> to propose, who has developed it and who owns it. Jim must 
> have done some great thing to build the perceived value that 
> his customer trust him 100% and no questions ask. 

I don't recall ever claiming that my customers ask no questions, but I
have done some interesting things in my time, and I find that since I
put establishing trust ahead of selling gear, by the time the topic of
the equipment comes up, the questions of where it comes from don't
matter so much. The customer trusts me to make that decision. Not only
that, but the fact that it is Linux-based and open-source is generally
seen as a benefit, not a detriment.

> I wonder 
> how this revolution will happen? In which country the buyer 
> would not care if the seller owns the right to sell a 
> product, or do you claim you build by your own?

Your customers are demonstrating a clear lack of trust if they doubt
your honesty. The customer has no reason to suspect that I am selling
illegal software, and if they ask any questions about licensing I
proudly tell them it's open source. That's one of its strengths, so I
talk about it whenever they give me the chance.

> Or customer is aware that it is open source, and say, hey go 
> ahead to do it, charge me whatever you feel fit, and I will 
> not trust any guy undercut you by price. 

For you, it all comes down to sticker price?

> Most of the Canadian 
> will want a cheaper one unless there is difference between 
> ours and the cheaper one. Yes, it is true that the low priced 
> company will die but there is almost new guys will come up to 
> quote low price if the entrance barrier is not there. This is 
> not happening in other country?
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I like "perceived value", I just feel the 
> situation of Asterisk is not going to achieve this. 

If you want a safe, predictable, shrink-wrapped solution, then you've
got the wrong technology. Asterisk is pushing the limits - hard; and if
you don't have the stomach for risk, this is not the game to be in.

I respect your point of view, I just don't agree with it.

> Digium 
> should have the best perceived value in Asterisk community 
> (am I wrong again?) and I am not sure if they are doing well 
> with their hardware and pre-configuration business. If they 
> do, I suggest they should share some experience with us, if 
> they don't I am afraid to build "perceived value" on Asterisk 
> is only a theory. 

What it all seems to boil down to is that you can't sell Asterisk
solutions on your own merits, so you need an industry, vendor and such
to support you. You want a nice, safe product that you can blame some
manufacturer for when it doesn't work. For you Asterisk's only value is
that it's free. The significance of this technology is totally lost on
you.

My advice would be to get a distributorship to sell NBX, TalkSwitch or
something similar. Nice and safe, with lots of case studies and a vendor
to blame when it doesn't work out.

This is NOT a safe place to be. Asterisk is an extreme sport - wear a
helmet!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John gerlich [mailto:jgerlich at verizon.net] 
> Sent: February 17, 2005 9:59 AM
> To: alex.pui at act-labs.com; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented 
> Asterisk Discussion'
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.
> 
> When was the last time you bought bottled water? 
> 
> I have had a number of companies over the years and have 
> always been the high price provider. It has nothing to do 
> with cost but with perceived value.
> 
> Let others be the low priced product. They will go out of 
> business providing service for which they will not be 
> compensated. It is far better to have fewer customers 
> generating the same revenue. The hand holding is the same no 
> matter what the price is. 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Alex Pui
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:37 PM
> To: jim at vanmeggelen.ca; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented 
> Asterisk Discussion'
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.
> 
> Jim,
> 
> I thanks for your time for the feedback which is very 
> educational. I still have a question : If Asterisk is an 
> entity, your strategy to sell value not to compete on cost, 
> might make sense, but since it is not, everyone can sell 
> Asterisk at any cost they want, your strategy is no way to 
> implement and this is the current problem we have.
> 
> Air is most valuable element for our life, but since it is 
> free, nobody can make money on it....well may be in 20 years 
> time, we can sell clear air.
> 
> Alex
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Van Meggelen [mailto:jim at vanmeggelen.ca] 
> Sent: February 17, 2005 9:05 AM
> To: alex.pui at act-labs.com; 'Commercial and Business-Oriented 
> Asterisk Discussion'
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small businesses.
> 
> Alex Pui wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Actually, there are already too many telecom "products" on 
> the market. Trying to turn Asterisk into yet another one 
> strikes me as a tactical error. Asterisk changes the rules; 
> disguising it as another legacy system doesn't strike me as 
> serving any purpose.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> For my customers, the fact that it is _not_ a Cisco or Nortel 
> and is a Linux-based open source technology has huge value. 
> They completely understand the fact that Linux doesn't come 
> encumbered with vendor-lock in. I had thought there would be 
> more resistance, but the only resistance I've seen comes from 
> the old-school telecom folks, who seem to think that a 
> revolution happens when you don't change anything.
> 
> Asterisk _does_ require a more complicated sales cycle, but 
> where I think we may make a mistake is when we position it as 
> "cheaper". Sure, we can be extremely competitive due to the 
> commodity hardware and software we use, but some of that cost 
> difference needs to go into the custom development required.
> 
> Putting Asterisk into a box and then selling that box is a 
> mistake. Asterisk needs to be sold as a service. That means 
> that the hardware/software is irrelevant. What is sold is the 
> fact that whatever the customer wants can be delivered (what 
> seems so self evident is actually huge - no other telecom 
> system can make this claim). The value comes from outstanding 
> customer service. Asterisk solutions need to be priced high 
> enough that there is money available to provide superior 
> service. Customer service is sadly lacking in the telecom 
> industry, and is therefore a huge opportunity (it always was, 
> in any business).
> 
> Asterisk should not be sold as a cheap system; it should be 
> sold as a technically superior way to engineer telecom 
> systems. It is not "free" and I would argue that it is not 
> necessarily a compelling sales strategy to tell customers 
> that it is (I'm not talking about hiding the fact that it's 
> GPL, I'm talking about focusing on the value of the solution, 
> not the price of the components).
> 
> Let's look at a hypothetical $20,000 VoIP-enabled legacy key 
> system with, say 20 sets.
> 
> Each character represents $500
> # represents hardware cost
> + represents licensing of "extra" features (including voicemail)
> ^ represents sets
> ! represents labour
> 
> The Legacy, proprietary "solution" 
> ##########+++++++^^^^^^^^^^!!!=========
> 
> The Asterisk solution
> ####^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!!!!======
> 
> With twice as much labour in the job, and more expensive 
> sets, there is a similar margin, and yet you can go as much 
> as 25% lower (and I wouldn't start $5000 cheaper either - 
> especially if the Asterisk solves problems the proprietary 
> system cannot - a 10% difference might be compelling enough). 
> If your competition matches your price, they lose money.
> 
> This is very raw, but what I'm hoping to demonstrate is the 
> concept that the savings due to the commodity hardware and 
> software allow for more labour to go into the customized 
> development. This is service!
> 
> Having worked with many different kinds of PBXs, I do not 
> find the configuration process in Asterisk to be complicated 
> at all. A skilled craftsperson should be able to program an 
> Asterisk system in roughly the same time as it takes to build 
> an equivalent proprietary system. 
> 
> 
> > 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.
> 
> If you do not base your price on your costs, then yes. But 
> yhy are you trying to teach your customer about Asterisk? 
> They probably don't care. Sell them on how you can solve 
> their problems.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Asterisk is going to be enormously profitable. But it will 
> never be easy, or straightforward.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jim.
> 
> 
> 
> > asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com wrote: 
> > 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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