[Asterisk-biz] success stories?

[Tracy R Reed]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 01:20:13PM +1100, James Harper spake thusly:
> I'd like to recommend a complete asterisk solution to a client who is
> looking at replacing their existing pbx. Can anyone on this list comment
> on the success I'm likely to have assuming I know what I'm doing and
> that I use quality components?
> 
> If the client is unhappy with it due to performance or reliability
> problems, even some teething ones, it won't look good, and will cost us
> or them a not-small amount of money.

I would strongly advise against making your first asterisk deployment for
a paying customer. Asterisk is a PBX toolkit, that's all. It requires a
ton of integration and comes with no end user interface. Every voip phone
has its own quirks and not all of the features on all of the phones work
with asterisk. You are on your own to discover what they are. I have been
using Asterisk for over a year and have sold a few PBX's but I am not
going to be selling any more asterisk based pbx's until I get a lot better
at it and develop a much better integrated product. I have lost a
significant amount of money on asterisk so far. I've learned these lessons
the hard way. I would also highly recommend knowing C and following the
asterisk cvs very closely. You will inevitably end up patching things by
hand as well. If a customer says anything about needing H323 tell them you
can't help them. Seriously. If they say they need an operator console with
lots of buttons tell them you can't help them. There is plenty more I
could share but I don't want this to become any more of a rant.

-- 
Tracy Reed    http://copilotcom.com 
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