Comments on: Diff’rent VoIP for Diff’rent Folks

By: Patrick and Fred

Patrick and Fred — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:16:27 +0000

Thank you all for your comments!

By: Jason Goecke

Jason Goecke — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:26:49 +0000

Good post. But of course my way is the right way.

By: And we’re back… | Fred Posner dot com

And we’re back… | Fred Posner dot com — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:03:34 +0000

[...] we’re back online and I’d love to share a new geeky blog post I wrote: Diff’rent VoIP for Diff’rent Folks. Oh, and I was interviewed by the Ann Arbor Chronicle about the parking lot application. The [...]

By: Michael S Collins

Michael S Collins — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:52:04 +0000

Awesome post!

I started out playing with Asterisk and ran into problems with specific features. FreeSWITCH was still very new at that point so I just watched and tinkered with both at the same time. Eventually FS got to the point where its functionality met my needs and then I jumped in full throttle. Oh, and I never looked back!

That being said, I agree with the basic idea presented here: do what works for you. I know a lot of people who just want a PBX out of the box and they use Asterisk or one of its derivatives like Trixbox. On the other hand, I know many power users who dropped Asterisk and use FreeSWITCH because of scalability or other concerns.

I’ll openly confess my bias towards FreeSWITCH. I highly recommend checking it out. Perhaps it will be “the right stroke” for you.

-MC

By: Dave Michels

Dave Michels — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:27:49 +0000

This is interesting from a technology perspective, but I don’t think the typical buyer cares about the underlying technology.

The buyer cares about Price, Features, and Support.

Price: Is usually #1, and although the initial cost of the equipment is a big factor, total cost of ownership needs to be evaluated. TCO includes all the professional services, ongoing maintenance, costs of potential outages, and competitive options. A good chunk of the cost of a phone system is the cost of the phones themselves – and digital phones remain cheaper – particularly if you have cat-3 wiring or need POE switches for VoIP. Hybrid switches offer remote teleworker phones, unified messaging, and may other “VoIP” features at a lower price.

Features: The big picture on most feature sets is they are pretty similar. There are some cutting edge first market benefits, but proper maintenance plans will eliminate those differences.

Support: This is the big one. Customers want a relationship with a vendor that they can communicate with and has a business model around service rather than nickel and diming customers. They also don’t want to be locked into a single dealer, and want some independent measure of qualification (certifications).

The best combination, which is 100% independent of the underlying technology, wins. The best combination differs by customer since they value different things. Some will value the underlying tech more than others.