Carmi Weinzweig wrote:
On Nov 21, 2004, at 11:15 AM, Wayne Sheppard wrote:
Tracy R Reed wrote:
I'm not surprised. Asterisk is a PBX, not a key system or a hybrid system. The kind of functionality that is being described here is one or both of those 'other' beasts. Now I'm not saying that this wouldn't be nice, or even a long term requirement if you really want to open the entire SME market, but it's not typical PBX behavior.On Sat, Nov 20, 2004 at 06:55:56PM -0500, Noah Miller spake thusly:
This does seem to be a common request, but I haven't seen any great
Yes, it is. I am surprised * still can't do it.
I would like you to name one PBX that does not support this behavior? Every system from Avaya including their Definity, Merlin Legend, Merlin Magix, Partner, and their new IP based PBXes support it, as do those from Mitel, Nortel, InteCom and every other system that I have ever used. A typical example is a manager/admin setup that works as follows:
Sarah a manager has a phone on her desk with call appearances for her main number (x-3123).
She also has a phone on her office conference table with its own number (x-3302) but also with shared call appearances for her main number (x-3123).
She shares a conference room with Ed, John, Steve, Susan and Simon. All their phone numbers have shared call appearances that conference room's phone.
Molly (Sarah's administrative assistant) has a phone with shared call appearances for Sarah, Ed and Susan (two other Executive Team members for whom she provides shared coverage with Wendy and Lisa).
When a call comes in for Sarah on x-3123, Molly can answer it, and just by looking at those little red and green lights on her phone she can tell if Sarah is on a call or not. She can then place this call on hold (not park it, just hit that red hold button) and call Sarah announcing this call.
Sarah can answer this call just by pressing that button next to the flashing light (indicating a call on hold) and picking up her phone. She does not have to use call pick up. She can also pick this call up on her office conference table, or in the Executive Team's conference room in exactly the same way, not needing to understand or know anything else ("press the button with my name on it next to the blinking green led").
All of this was done using a PBX (an Avaya Definity), never using call pickup, or an operator console (just a standard 28 button phone for Molly, Wendy and the Executive Team conference room, and a standard 10 button phone for Sarah, Steve, Ed, John, and Simon). This is a real example at a real company, not just something made up as a straw man.
If you want to see examples of this, I would be happy to take you to the Math Department at University of Illinois (Nortel), Sony Pictures Imageworks (Avaya) or Argonne National Laboratory's Energy and Environmental Systems group (InteCom).
Yes, well thank you for the kind offer, but I have actually seen a PBX before, even those new fangled ones with *proprietary phones with lots of buttons*. Plug a Nortel phone into an Avaya switch and see what happens. The same task for * is a bit more challenging?
In fact, if you start looking at *all* the differences in functionality, (i.e. call announce, hands free answer-back, hold/pickup scenarios, etc.) it *may* be easier to have a different product stream that is targeting this sort of thing. Of course that's easy to say, but hard to do given the number of developers that are actually working/contributing to * on a regular basis.
I would still like to understand how adding any of these features (even if they were not already available on almost every PBX system sold today), would comprise Asterisk's "PBXness" in some way that would hurt its adoption.
I think you misunderstood my message, so my bad for not being more clear. I'll try to clarify, and these will be my last comments regarding this comparison to keep this thread from getting any larger than it already is without adding any additional value.
I'm not saying that it would compromise *'s 'PBXness'. But you are comparing products that have DECADES of development and maturity, building on basic features that * is just now getting stable, and that use proprietary hardware to accomplish these features.
It wasn't very long ago that all of the above vendors' solutions called for departmental key systems to provide the kind of functionality that's being discussed, and usually to get some other features that the PBX didn't provide, or didn't provide in a way that was easy to use.
My point was to 'sell what you have' today. Asterisk is not yet suitable (IMO) as a direct Nortel, Avaya, Toshiba, etc. replacement for *every* possible customer application. But having said that, it's absolutely beautiful for *many* applications. Nothing will injure a great product in the market faster than trying to 'pound to fit and paint to match' into customer requirements that are not a good fit. I completely agree that these features would be nice, and are indeed, for certain markets, requirements.
But (you knew there was one, right?)-
It seems to me that this yelping/almostflaming for additional features needs some cheese to go with the whine. So I was trying to throw the developers some slack while they make truly fundamental features rock solid is all. I am sure that these features will eventually emerge, but as others on the list have indicated it may very well take some hardware to accomplish the task (depending on how you describe the requirements) and that's not really entirely an * issue, is it?
This isn't unique to *, it's the battle that every PBX vendor fights at least internally with product management.
Yes, but every other PBX vendor has adopted this functionality, while Asterisk has not.
I guess I would add 'yet' to that sentence. I haven't seen anyone say that these are 'bad' ideas, but perhaps I just missed it.
How to be all things to all people and still have some level of control over the product development and support streams. I guess what I'm ultimately pointing to is the need to pre-qualify a prospect before one makes a sales proposal.
This "religious" argument ("We cannot do that because it is unPBX-like.") seems to also miss another important factor. While large and small organizations use this functionality, a system is almost unusable for a small office without it (see how it is used in every small store or company with a Merlin Legend or Magix system for example). I am fairly convinced that smaller offices are better candidates to adopt Asterisk than are fortune 500 companies. Not having these features makes Asterisk much less likely to be deployed in those environments. While Pingtel's open source sipXchange is not quite ready (still a month or two off from what I have seen), it is getting quite close. I think seeding this whole market segment to them is not the best plan.
I certainly didn't say or mean 'We cannot do that because it is unPBX-like'. In fact I take great pains to try not to be directive on the subject in any way. Oh well, written language is always hard because one can't share the nuances very well. At least this one can't/ :)
Well, it takes a certain kind of customer and application to make use of Asterisk, no doubt. It's more work to build an ROI, and will require some retraining, etc. But the reason they use a Merlin (or whatever) the way they do is because that's how they were trained to do it! And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that most of those users couldn't create a conference call if their life depended on it. Why? Bad design? Mostly it's a training issue, and a lack of need to do it very often. Does that mean that those are 'bad' or 'inadequately featured' products? Probably not. There are lots of systems installed in that same customer base that don't use the fancy multi-button phones.
As far as the view that fortune 500 companies are not good prospects, I would suggest that they are indeed good prospects, but for specific applications mostly targeted at the departmental level, etc. It might be tough nut to crack for a newbie that's never sold in that space before, and just wakes up one day and decides to, but for an experienced rep with a Rolodex it's much easier to get their attention. Depends on the sales/marketing/application/business case more than the product.
Anyway, one thing that's nice about Open Source -. If it's that bloody important, life and death, and the market demand is great enough, then someone will pony up with either the $$$ or the resources to make it happen. But without one or the other, it takes the time it takes. I don't think that * will die immediately upon the release of sipXchange, with or without these features.
If there are certain aspects of PBX vs. Key System that they can't metabolize, or aren't willing to make the user training investment, then sell them what they will can rather than try to pound a square peg into their round hole. Does this limit the market for *? Sure does. But hen no matter how bad a salesman wants to sell me a minivan, I'm just not interested.
Given how many times this request has come up, I would like to know if there is a technical explanation as to why this is hard?
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