[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk feature list: spreadsheet

[John Coll]

John

I looked at your spreadsheet with interest.

You grade each item with an indication of the amount of effort needed to use
the feature.

"Level 1 effort is 1-6 hours of development, plus testing.  Level 2 effort
is 6-20 hours of development, and/or external purchase of tools. S=Standard,
O=Optional, NA=Not Available"

This implies to me that items marked as S (standard) will take less than 1
hour of development effort.

For a traditional PBX a "Standard feature" can generally be pretty easily
configured in half an hour or so. As we know that is not the case for
Asterisk and this therefore seems somewhat disingenuous.

I see the need and value of a list like this - it is really helpful. However
in fairness to anyone evaluating Asterisk from the perspective of someone
who is familiar with a traditional PBX, should one not add a note explaining
that ...

"Standard features are likely to take several hours to configure and may
well only work with certain hardware / software combinations. Concise
documentation to enable you to rapidly provision many of the features with
particular hardware is not available."

I would prefer that potential users are given a balanced and realistic
expectation of what asterisk offers today on a like-for-like basis and to do
that there needs to be a clear disclaimer/explanation such as that shown
above.


john



-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of John Todd
Sent: 06 January 2004 14:17
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk feature list: spreadsheet


http://www.loligo.com/asterisk/misc/Presentations/Asterisk-features-20040106
.xls

I had been asked a while ago to put together a short Excel
spreadsheet listing many of the "common" features of Asterisk as
compared to a typical PBX.  Many PBX vendors supply an exhaustive
list of their features, and I figured I'd take as many of the unique
features as others had offered, and put them together in a big list,
and then also include some of the features that are unique to
Asterisk.

I think this list will be of some use to persons evaluating Asterisk
against their existing PBX platform, or other vendors of new VoIP
systems.  Note that I took some liberties with the "standard feature"
syntax: often, things that seemed _very_ easy for me to do with
Asterisk's scripting features I listed as "S"tandard, even though it
would require a few minutes of work.  Other features which seemed to
be a little more complex, or which would require some web
programming, I listed with estimates of how much time it would take
to build them.  I assumed use of Cisco 7960 phones, so some of the
features which are really deskset options I listed as "S"tandard if I
were to use 7960 devices.  Caveat emptor for other desksets.

This is not truly a "comparison", since there are no other columns in
the spreadsheet.  However, it's good fodder for you to whack your
VoIP or PBX vendor on the nose with, since they typically will not be
able to match the feature list.

Olle: feel free to add to the Wiki, since you asked for this type of list.
Anyone else: feel free to send me updates in cut/pasteable Excel form
if you have things you'd like to add to the list.

JT

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