[Asterisk-Users] IBM to Run VoIP On Linux

[Asterisk online forums]

As we know market has thousands of great free source products, but somehow
most of  companies are buying commercial software and paying  a lot of $$$ .
Question becomes why they need to pay so much money for something what can
be taken for free ? Also, why all these software products are so expensive ?
For example voip billing software from MIND CTI, it cost more then 100K .
However you can find a lot of individuals on internet (read message boards,
posts, forums) who can create normal  billing software and it will cost you
... 1K..  Yes , 1 K . So why not to buy it for 1K ? Why to spend thousands
of dollars ??  Software itself  cost 0$ if it has no support, like in case
of  example of individuals who is selling 1K programs. If you spend 100K to
software you know that it has : support, normal documentation, updates,
patches,
and in most cases it is Ready-to-Go solution. If you need some kind of
customization you can get one from manufacture too, sometimes it will cost
more $$$, but still you will get what you need.
In order to provide support, documentation, marketing materials, etc
software companies are offering high cost for software.

Every company has 2 major departments sales/marketing and technical.

We are in Open Source World (OSW) here, I would say we belong to technical
department in this case.
We just don't have sales/marketing department for Asterisk software in  OSW.

Let's take a look , who are members of Asterisk community  :
programmers, developers, engineers,sys. admins, net admins - 99.9%

Sales/marketing guys they don't know what is UNIX/Linux, Open Source, Zaptel
driver, XP100, Kernel . They have no idea about it.
So, they are coming here let's say and look into mailing list archive. What
they see ? kernel, driver compilation problem, zaptel info, etc. Yes,
nothing else. Where is asterisk-business mailing list ? Where it is ??
When I started unofficial asterisk forums, I thougth people will come to
discuss business issues  and solutions. Take a look, we have 99.9% technia
questions postings ...(http://asterisk.xvoip.com)

Let's take a look into our engineers, developers, programmers .. They are
just great guys , with excellent knowledge, experience .. mostly in
technical field.
It is hard for regular developer to create proposal about IP PBX/Asterisk
and to bring it to management for discussions/implementation. In 99%
management will refuse proposal, even without reading it. But if they will
start reading it, what they see ? Guess .. zaptel driver, kernel, unix,
xp100.. Proposal will go to garbage can.
Everybody has its own responsibilities within company. Technical
guys/developers has nothing to do with Marketing/Sales and this is why we
don't see Asterisk
today in slashdot or in New York Times.
We are missing marketing/sales actions to bring Asterisk to community, to
companies.   And I agree 200% with Adam and  John  about  it.

For Linus Tovalds it took couple years to make people to believe into  Linux
. Today, we can see his results, IBM, Dell, Compaq everybody is using Linux,
it is known , very well known and  end result of his  Free Open Source
campaign for Red  Hat Linux is  next: Red Hat becomes commercial software
(commercial support per workstation.etc).

Asterisk IP PBX project is great !! It has so many features, it is
fantastic, but ... it is missing normal business/marketing/sales part.
Without it , it will be very hard
to bring it to community, to make it very well known.

We need "Asterisk Pro" commercial package to be developed. We need to create
nice documentation, faq, knowledgebase. Good software packaging.
One more example about packaging,  you can buy so called clone for  X100p
card and  imagine it has  beautiful colored box, CD , 30 pages colored nice
manual and all these for 10$. If I will take  X100p card from Digium and
clone card ... I will choose clone card. So others will do.


Asterisk Project is free source project and for someone who is using it at
home environment and who is  developer it is fine, they don't need  anything
else.
But majority of people here represent companies, they can bring Asterisk to
company as a solution. They only need help to do it.  We can help them to do
it, it will increase Digiums sales and will bring some profit to community
participants.

I think it is time to start commercial Pro version (not expensive !!!) of
Asterisk.
In my company we already made decision to do it, to offer people
ready-to-go solution. But is is hard to do anykind of such product without
Digium and Mark's support.
Mark  I think you are  very overloaded with all projects, maybe we can help
with Asterisk project.  "Asterisk Basic" will stay as it is now, but we will
be developing
"Asterisk Pro". This community has excellent talented people, just go to IRC
and  participate in chat .. You will see how helpful are people. And
everything is free.. Some of guys  spends couple hours to fix someone's
problem, to write to someone AGI script, etc.. and everything is for free.
Imagine if  these people will be getting small  payments for this work ?
They will be much more productive and will bring more help to community.
Some of them have "paypal" donation bottom on  sites and of course  most of
people don't make donations .. But not because they are not willing
..because they are just technical regular guys within company and doing
there own research. If they will donate, they have to do it from there own
pocket, company will never payoff such expense. But people who is helping
others sometimes deserves to be paid. We have couple guys who is doing so
great job!!!


This is why I want to bring this topic for public discussion, let's join
forces together and Mark help us , so we can help Digium to make success for
this product.
Whatever  your decision will be, we are going to make it happen, because
Asterisk product deserves to be Worlds Famous product . Everybody must know
Asterisk and we have to do it. !

By combining Asterisk software, Digium cards, ISPs, Wholesale Voice
providers we will endup in couple interesting ready-to-go
solution , i.e
Ready-to-Go Commercial IP PBX with fantastic  options.. + Commercial Support
,maintenance agreements, etc
Ready-to-Go VOIP gateway (SIP/H323/MGCP) compatible + Low cost voice
termination services.
Ready-to-Go Call Center solution
Call shop solution
plus couple more hosted solutions.

Nobody is talking  here about super-income. To start we don't need large
investments too. We have almost everything, it is just needed to be
formalized, documented, etc. Nice business and marketing/sales plan must be
created.
Nothing is easy, but we can try.

I apologize for so long email and taking your time, but guys let's move!
Let's do something what will bring success for all of us.
I will open Discussion topic on  Asterisk Forums : http://asterisk.xvoip.com