Tag Archives: asterisk

Why Asterisk doesn’t sell against Avaya

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Tom Keating posted the sentiment that Asterisk ought to be impacting sales of traditional IP PBX vendors such as Avaya and Cisco, but I’m not sure I agree. Here are six reasons why Asterisk has failed to cut into Avaya/Cisco/Nortel’s share of the market:

1. Digium and its channel can’t sell against blue chippers. Avaya has a huge distributor channel filled with high-paid salespeople that get the job done. Asterisk, not so much. So there’s a polish Avaya, Cisco, and Nortel offer that Asterisk doesn’t. Some of the people running around calling themselves Asterisk consultants are just plain shabby. Then again, this is not uncommon in the open source world, I’m sorry to say.

2. Avaya has well-defined hardware products that are tangible and capital-oriented. Digium does not.

3. Asterisk is open source and there’s no comfort level with open source among board room buyers.

4. It’s still too hard to get immediate support for Asterisk-based products, and a Switchvox or a Fonality doesn’t have the same mobile support force that an Avaya does.

5. Asterisk is a solution developer’s product of choice, not an end-customer’s product of choice. When people hear ‘Asterisk’, they think ‘API’ instead of thinking ‘solution’.

6. The market is growing. Asterisk’s market share could increase steadily without the necessity for a decrease among its competitors.

How to rootcrack an Asterisk box

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VoIPsa, an organization which I’ve previously accused of being more of a pretty face for VoIP equipment makers than a real agent of positive change, today called attention to a handful of security hacks targeted at Asterisk. Notice the apparent reluctance to say anything good about the IAX protocol, which is arguably Asterisk’s single-best feature. Anyway, check em out here.

Recruiting Lamp/Asterisk Developer

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I have a fabulous opportunity for a qualified Asterisk developer to perform the following work on an ongoing contract basis:

- Inherit and continue development of a mostly-PHP based management add-on for Asterisk.
- Develop new features and database functions for one-of-a-kind, industry-specific telephony management application.

Required skills:

- PHP
- Apache
- Asterisk
- MySQL

Desired skills:

- AMP or FreePBX experience strongly preferred
- Strong SIP knowledge preferred

You’ll be working as a subcontractor on a high-profile VoIP project with some of the leading VoIP thinkers in the industry. Interested? Contact me right here.

Friendly words about “Switching to VoIP”

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I couldn’t help but chuckle when reading a recent review of my book, Switching to VoIP:

If any specific product is given more attention than others, it’s Asterisk, but that’s not only welcome, it’s unavoidable given the subject matter. The treatment it receives here also beats the everloving tar out of the O’Reilly book dedicated to Asterisk exclusively.

Here’s the rest of  the review.

Spark Parking Lands Emeryville Deal

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The City of Emeryville, CA has selected Spark Parking, the innovative company that’s using Asterisk and other software to create automated public parking solutions, to track parking utilization and length of stay in a rapidly growing mixed-use neighborhood. Better parking data will enable Emeryville officials to understand the impact of new housing and retail development in the area, supporting recommendations from a parking management plan process expected to begin shortly. Check out Spark Parking here.

Asterisk 1.4 security flaw fixed

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The Asterisk and Zaptel development teams have released Asterisk 1.4.1.

This release contains a very large number of bug fixes, including a fix
for the recently discovered security vulnerability.

It also contains a complete rewrite of the Shared Line Appearance (SLA)
support that was first released as part of Asterisk 1.4.0. The new
version of this functionality has been tested against a variety of
phones and provides much more flexibility and configurability (along
with actually working properly in most scenarios, which the original
implementation failed to do). Users who are interested in SLA
functionality should update to this version and try it out; we welcome
bug reports and test reports.

Because of the security vulnerability fix present in this version, all
users of Asterisk 1.4 are urged to update as soon as they can schedule it.

I’m Recruiting a VoIP Guru… You?

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This position will be working as a consultant to Best Technology Strategy and is based in Plano, TX. The assignment is full-time and runs through the end of the year, maybe longer. Here’s what I need:

The VoIP Business Analyst is an individual contributor and is responsible for the analysis, design and implementation of processes for the delivery of VoIP, IPT and other voice services. Your role will include communicating with both technical and business-oriented individuals.

You will be responsible for developing working documents, as well as coordinating deliverables, individual status reports and client provided documentation.
You will need a solid technical foundation in VoIP, IPT technologies as well as hands-on experience with UNIX Admin, SQL, SNMP and scripting, implementing and validating solutions.

If that’s you, Skype me at tedwallingford or leave a comment with your email address (it will not be shared with the public).