<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1250">
<TITLE>Message</TITLE>
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2604" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY text=#000000 bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><SPAN class=909060022-17022005><FONT face=Verdana color=#0000ff>That's my
whole point. Asterisk requires more skill, but once those skills are obtained,
it knocks the socks off a proprietary system.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=909060022-17022005><FONT face=Verdana
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=909060022-17022005><FONT face=Verdana
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Sergey Kuznetsov
[mailto:asterisk_biz@deeptown.org] <BR><B>Sent:</B> February 17, 2005 3:10
PM<BR><B>To:</B> jim@vanmeggelen.ca; Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk
Discussion<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk for small
businesses.<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>I can program any complicated AGI on Perl in
very short time.<BR>Way faster than it takes time to proprietary expert to
tune up his/her system.<BR><BR>My extensions.conf will look
like:<BR><BR>[default]<BR>exten =>
XX.,1,AGI(jack-of-all-trades.agi)<BR><BR>Probably sip.conf and iax.conf will
be overcrowded, but this is still Okay for me.<BR><BR>The rest will be done in
Perl and Postgres.<BR><BR>Jim Van Meggelen wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid012101c51512$d34fe3b0$6e01a8c0@xp2400 type="cite"><PRE wrap="">Alex Pui wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">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.
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap=""><!---->
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.
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">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.
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap=""><!---->
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.
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">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.
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap=""><!---->
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.
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">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.
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap=""><!---->
Asterisk is going to be enormously profitable. But it will never be
easy, or straightforward.
Cheers,
Jim.
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap=""><A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces@lists.digium.com">asterisk-biz-bounces@lists.digium.com</A> wrote:
<A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces@lists.digium.com">asterisk-biz-bounces@lists.digium.com</A> wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">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.)
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap="">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:
<A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/paradigmshift_0504.html">http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/paradigmshift_0504.html</A>
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
<A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:jim@vanmeggelen.ca">jim@vanmeggelen.ca</A>
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap=""><!---->
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72">--
All the Best!
Sergey.
=========================
Sergey Kuznetsov
President/CEO
High Intellectual Technologies, Inc.
Web: <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext href="http://www.hitcalls.com">http://www.hitcalls.com</A>
E-mail: <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:sergey.kuznetsov@highintellect.com">sergey.kuznetsov@highintellect.com</A>
Business phone: (416) 548-9700
Mobile phone: (647) 287-8448</PRE><BR>
<P><FONT size=2>--<BR>No virus found in this incoming message.<BR>Checked by
AVG Anti-Virus.<BR>Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date:
14/02/2005<BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>--<BR>
No virus found in this outgoing message.<BR>
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.<BR>
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.8 - Release Date: 14/02/2005<BR>
</FONT> </P>