[Asterisk-Users] FAQ, Documentation, How-to, etc

[Joe Dennick]

I'm going to add my two cents to this conversation as its now taken many
turns.  This thread has produced quite a bit of good dialog, even though
some of it may not be viewed as such.

I've been playing with Asterisk now for a couple of months both at home
and at work in our Test Environment.  I (and therefore my company) first
became interested in Asterisk because of the functionality it offers at
a reduced cost.  We're not searching for a 'free' product, just one that
doesn't cost an arm and a leg to implement.  I'm coming at this from a
business perspective, not a programmer/geek/nerd perspective.  I'm very
versed in Data Networking, but am not a programmer.

Currently, we have a traditional PBX (Nortel) that is stable.  It offers
basic Queue functions and primitive Queue reporting, but little else.
We felt the need to implement an IVR system that would allow us to
identify customers calling in before sending the call to an agent.  With
IVR, we can also allow the customer to do account balance lookups
without human intervention (just like your credit card company).  A
large and well-known CTI/IVR vendor recently quoted between $300,000 and
$480,000 to implement that same technology for our 120 Queue Agents with
a system that smelled an awful lot like Asterisk tied (probably via
trunk cards) to our traditional PBX.

Another really attractive benefit of Asterisk (or VoIP in general) is
that we can communicate with our remote offices scattered around the US
over the Internet (probably VPN) for a fraction of the current cost of
traditional POTs lines.  With that ability, we can add Remote Agents to
the ACD Queues (not currently possible with a traditional ACD Queue),
and allow them to take advantage of our volume-based negotiated Long
Distance rates for out-bound calls.

So, the point that I'm trying to get to is that the product needs the
exposure to the business folks who make the decisions before it can be
implemented.  Programmers rarely have the power to persuade the decision
makers to make such a drastic move.  Everyone agrees that Asterisk is
attractive to the business people as described above.  But, if
Asterisk's documentation cannot speak to those same business people, it
will never gain acceptance!  Technology for the sake of technology is
just useless.  Technology that solves a business problem should be the
focus.  Asterisk is definitely cool technology!  But...it's development
and documentation needs to be aimed towards the business folks who would
really use it, not the geeks like myself playing with it in their
basement.

Rich made the comment earlier on this thread that belittling newbies and
telling them to read the code isn't the answer.  Especially if those
newbies are the ones who have a business need, and the power to make
decisions!  Asterisk has come to a point where it can attract some real
users, let's make it easy for those users to get a system running so
they'll become productive users (and therefore paying customers).

For the record, in our Test Environment, we have been able to create a
system with ACD Queues that prompts callers for their customer number,
then tags Remedy (Call Ticket application) for that customer's recent
call history.  The system then pops up the Remedy Call Log and the phone
call to the agent at the same time.  We're currently working on the
Account Balance Lookup feature that would be a true use of IVR and not
require any human intervention.  I'm about to the point of being ready
to recommend this for a small pilot test, but cannot do so (in a
Production Environment) without two things.  1) Redundancy so as to
ensure 99.9% uptime; and 2) some form of commercial support to ensure
that problems are addressed rapidly and professionally.

To meet those requirements, I believe it might behoove Digium to adapt
Red Hat's (or MySQL, or EMIC) business strategy.  From a corporate
standpoint, I (our company) would be willing to pay for support and
probably implementation if it were offered.  The dollars quoted above
are what Asterisk is competing against.

I'm sorry that this post is so long, but I want to ensure that Asterisk,
Digium, and it's developers and supporters recognize who the product
really should be aimed at.  There's some risk, but there's also a lot of
benefit to be gained by aiming at the Corporate Decision Makers who are
tired of being pushed around by Commercial Vendors who want to charge
too much for too little.  I believe Asterisk could become a prevalent as
Apache, MySQL, SendMail, etc. 

Thank you for listening!

Joe Dennick
IS Operations Director
Securities America Financial Corporation
joe at dennick.net

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Grzegorz
Nosek
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 4:05 AM
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FAQ, Documentation, How-to, etc


On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:47:08 -0500, Dorian Gray wrote
> I yammered:
> > of public resources such as this list. put that FAQ in the list 
> > subscribe welcome message or the list sig or the asterisk README or 
> > handbook or all of the above...
> 
> er, in case it wasn't obvious: s/that FAQ/a link to that FAQ/ I am all

> for svng prcs bndwdth.

Actually a full FAQ sent to all newcomers to the list would be quite
useful, I think. As in: I subscribe to the mailing list and the first
message I get is the list FAQ (but no-one else sees it, naturally),
together with a link to the Wiki, digium's documentation site etc.

Alternatively, reading the FAQ might be obligatory to subscribe (must
click though it to actually subscribe).

my 0.02PLN

_______________________________________________
Asterisk-Users mailing list
Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com
http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users