I was at a client today that wanted to know how to make money in the very competitive market of VoIP. He mentioned that it is hard to make money on minutes since there is a lot of fierce competition. I explained to him as I have explained to others that clients that are coming to you for the price per minute (generally speaking) are not worth it. If they get a rate of $0.015 per minute to the US from you today and some one else tomorrow will offer them $0.013 they will leave in a moment. It’s all about service. There are plenty of clients out there that are willing to pay for service. People don’t just need low rates but the need features (IVR’s, Call recording, Queues, real time statistics etc.). I tend to work with such people since they are willing to pay for the serivce and they wont nickle and dime you for everything. Know what your worth and sell yoru self accordingly. Never undermarket yourself.
Thank you Mark Spencer
There are a lot of us out there that owe a big thanks to Mark Spencer (creator of Asterisk). Until Asterisk was released pretty much the only PBX’s out there that were legacy systems. Mark came along and opened a whole new market for both sellers and buyers. From a sellers point there are a lot more out there to offer and it is very easy to configure and maintain Asterisk (assuming that you know Asterisk 😉 ). All one needs is a good knowledge of Linux and you are off. From the end user’s point it is great as well. Gone are the days of paying $3,000.00 to have your system work with SIP. I had a client who told me that his system was “SIP Enabled”. We were trying to figure out how to connect to the system since there was nothing in there that pointed to SIP. He called his phone guy and was told to have SIP capabilities he would need to purchase a VOIP card for his PBX that would run him $3,000.00. With asterisk it’s just writing a few lines of code (OK some times more than a few). Gone are the days of paying extra for every feature. A while back I was in a company who purchased a PBX from 3Com. They went with them for the name. They spent a little over $45,0000.00. I could of done the same for them for about $2,500.00 (using good hardware). All that would have been required was some research on working with Asterisk. It amazes me that some people are still scared to use it because it is open source.
To sum it up I think many of us owe our jobs to Mark. He has done something great for many of us.
/D
VON Israel 2007
Where do I start ? There were so many interesting things this year at VON. From a new wireless phone by SNOM that works on DECT technology to seeing Motorola’s new Canopy Wireless. To some it up I was like a little kid in a candy shop. I also had the pleasure of speaking to the CEO and founder of SNOM Dr. Christian Stredicke. It looks like SNOM is headed in the right direction. There were many lectures held but I was too busy looking at all the toys I would buy if I had an unlimited budget. Here are a few things that stood out.
1) The HD phones from Polycom. I can now finally say that VOIP quality is better than PSTN. The Polycom 650 is definitely on my shopping list.
2) SNOM’s new wireless phone. While I am sad that it does not work on Wifi (I like the option of using it as I am on the go). However it seems that DECT technology has made a name for its self and I will have to get my hands on one once SNOM releases the phone.
3) HTC’s X7500. It’s a cute little toy that can actually help me out a lot. If for instance I need to ssh in to a server of mine it is a lot easier pulling out my laptop on the road or trying to read the tiny font in Putty on my PDA phone.
4) Motorola’s Canopy wireless technology. I like the idea of wireless technology that can go up to 2 kilometers and have constant speeds of 20 mbps. The best part is no license is needed to operate it.
5) Motorola’s power over AC technology. While the technology has existed for a while Motorola has seemed to do a great job with it. They have perfected it so that it can work in a large building environment with little to no issues (current technology limits how far the devices can be from each other).
There were lots of other things presented at VON but these were the ones that stood out most. Anyone out there want to help me with my shopping habit (aka toy addiction) ?
/D