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

[Steven Critchfield]

On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 07:45, Joe Dennick wrote:
> 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.

> 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).

These two paragraphs are kind of arrogant. The X100P is basically a card
directed at home users, or very small offices. Last I talked to Mark, he
was selling a lot of these cards. The T100P can marginally be called a
home card, but is more for smallish companies, again selling fairly
well. The T400P and TE410P cards are for larger installs, and I didn't
ask about their sales.

It has to be pointed out that outside of Digium and a few other people,
it is geeks in the basement/bedroom helping out here. I say this as I am
writing from bed. I remind you that not all of us are here to make
money. You need to understand that we also aren't here to develop for
you or businesses. We will develop for what we deem will fix the problem
we are experiencing.

> 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.

See this is where you hire a company that will develop what you need.
Most of the redundancy will just be purchasing hardware. I'm sure you
will possibly be contacted by vendors shortly that would like to take
your money for developing asterisk. 

> 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 believe it is offered. I have personally called and had quotes made
for them to do the coding I needed.

-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>