[asterisk-biz] iBat: A business opportunity for Asterisk professionals

[Aldo Bergamini]

The newly released IOS apps in the iBat App Suite offer a unique business opportunity to Asterisk professionals.

While the apps offer a palette of practical functionality to the end customer, with ease of use as the primary design goal, they need support at the server side. Setting up the needed iBat Proxy is not complex (not more than installing an Asterisk server), but clearly beyond what can be expected from an end user. This is the 'entry point' for every Asterisk consultant!

Once you master the very simple -close to obvious- Linux command line steps that prepare a fully configured iBat Proxy server, you can offer the whole iBat apps suite to your existing customers, as it were your own product. Yours are the customers, your is the work and yours the compensation!

Go back to your past and present customers offering them a fresh, new way to monitor and control their Asterisk PBX. 

Not only will they be always in touch with the PBX, from the office or when traveling; they'll get calls originated to their heart's content, both from internal users as well as from VIP customers. Choosing a line to place a call from Asterisk is easier through iBat apps than on most high end phones; and a user can tap into his/her iPhone contacts list to get the callee's number. Call transfer is available at a finger's touch.

The installation work, as well as a need for lightweight administrator's work is where the business opportunity resides for anybody who can install and maintain an Asterisk server. There is then a second opportunity for Asterisk consultants: you can offer over-the-air app management to handle the chores of user installation and updates management!
      
The Apple App Store allows to buy (even in bulk quantities, through the B2B Store functions) applications for a third party. Once you have a set of iBat App installation vouchers you only have your customers to receive the number of redemption codes they need, go on the Apple App Store and download the apps.

There are free management tools to administer and manage apps on end users' iPhones (see: http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html).

To take the opportunity offered by the iBat Apps Suite you just need to train yourself into setting up the iBat Proxy server and go offer your existing customers some nice new ways to avail themselves of their Asterisk PBX: the only cost to you is that of the apps themselves.

If you compare the cost of a few app licences with the cost of any single 'BLF hardware sidecar' unit you will quickly realize how more convenient they are than the closest comparable kind of product.

And do keep in mind that BLF units can not go mobile with their users! They do not offer all the functions available throughout the apps suite.

Take the time to go online for more information:
Main page: http://www.pxc.biz
Docs page: http://www.pxc.biz/documentation.html
Support page: http://www.pxc.biz/support.html
Apple App Store B2B operations: http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/


Aldo Bergamini
PXC.BIZ
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