Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
So, today, the only ones buying it are the ones willing to both pay for the product AND pay for support.
The only ones buying it today are the ones that pay for support. PBXs are free, if you didn't want support, you'd use one of the countless free products. In software, all value is in support. One of the many reasons why Microsoft products really don't have much value, they don't have support. That's why they work so hard to sell through pressure, not quality. MS really stands out as completely crazy that anyone buys their stuff as it doesn't come with support - but mostly this is because people THINK that it does and then find out later that it was so obvious that support was what they were paying for that they just get screwed because they didn't think it through.
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
But the discussion is to drop the cost on the product completely which only leaves selling support. Which is all I was saying.
No, the discussion is to make a product open source. You already only really pay for support. I don't know of any vendor that sells software PBXs without support. The PBX is worthless on its own, only the support is worth money. That's all that they sell now.
That's all the vendor in question sells now. clearly other PBX vendors also sell modules.
With support.
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Anything that comes "with support" isn't really selling software. Find me unsupported PBXs and modules that people are selling, then you can show me somewhere where someone paid for software.
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@dashrender said in [Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX]
Are the prices of the modules so outrageous to you that it makes the product unusable? I challenge you to find a normal vendor selling typical SMB phone systems cheaper than the cost of those desired modules that do that functionality.
Its just an adoption barrier. Everyone expects to pay per month for services, features, etc now. Offer OPEX and CAPEX and see your coffers rewarded.
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
But tomorrow let's assume that the product is free. If they want any chance at getting support contacts from the SMB they will have to be a pretty low cost on that support, otherwise it won't sell, a la XO. Now maybe they won't care about that because they have no desire to support SMB so they leave the support costs where they are today. Fine, this only works for them because they already had a customer base at their old pricing model. But if they were to jump out there today like like XO has they would probably be floundering to find customers.
This makes no sense and does not mirror the market at all. They are willing to pay this for support today, making the product open source just increases the value of the whole thing, it does not decrease it in any way. Whatever they are paying today logically they would be willing to pay the same or more for a better overall support and software package.
XO's has nothing to do and as you know should never be used as an example for anything because their pricing is 100% set without the market and has nothing to do with being open source, free, who will buy it or anything of the sort. Look at Red Hat, Oracle, Suse, IBM and other giant open source companies and their support models.
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Also, people selling on-prem IP systems are going the way of guys who are selling you a closet full of servers.
Everythings OPEX, nothing is CAPEX. People swallow that pill easier and truthfully they likely pay more after the 12th or 18th month then they would have paid for a 25 year license.
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@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
This makes no sense and does not mirror the market at all. They are willing to pay this for support today, making the product open source just increases the value of the whole thing, it does not decrease it in any way. Whatever they are paying today logically they would be willing to pay the same or more for a better overall support and software package.
Of course those who where already paying will likely keep paying, And as I mentioned, if they don't care about supporting SMB, then you're right, there would be no change. But if they want to try to gain some support revenues, they might offer a less expensive option in hopes of getting SMBs to buy it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
XO's has nothing to do and as you know should never be used as an example for anything because their pricing is 100% set without the market and has nothing to do with being open source, free, who will buy it or anything of the sort. Look at Red Hat, Oracle, Suse, IBM and other giant open source companies and their support models.
I would have disagreed with this if XOA hung their hat on being open source but the main page doesn't even mention that, but they don't.
As for the others, I have no idea how they do support - only that you, Scott, have told me that if you can get your hands on the RHEL install media, you can install and use it as much as you want, because the software is completely free. But, they cloak that fact behind their support contracts, making the install media challenging to get directly from them.
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
This makes no sense and does not mirror the market at all. They are willing to pay this for support today, making the product open source just increases the value of the whole thing, it does not decrease it in any way. Whatever they are paying today logically they would be willing to pay the same or more for a better overall support and software package.
Of course those who where already paying will likely keep paying, And as I mentioned, if they don't care about supporting SMB, then you're right, there would be no change. But if they want to try to gain some support revenues, they might offer a less expensive option in hopes of getting SMBs to buy it.
I think if you are tech savvy you are more likely to install a FOSS product. If you aren't tech savvy you are just going to buy a Hosted PBX service. The market for paid, self-installed PBX software has to be non-existent.
All the profects and vendors I mentioned in the original post are making money off of carriers, mid-sized ITSP's, special integration projects (example Sendhubs latest features which 2600hz was behind).
Sipwise is selling to carriers in Africa and parts of Europe. That CPBX is just an add on to their Class 4 and 5 switches, which are the breadwinners.
I can't think of anything closed source and license based that is doing anything to move their company's needle. For example, I only see Kerio Operator mentioned when someone is talking someone else out of buying it. Some old timer will pop up and say Operator is great, because he has done 2 PBX installs (talkswitch and now Operator).
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
XO's has nothing to do and as you know should never be used as an example for anything because their pricing is 100% set without the market and has nothing to do with being open source, free, who will buy it or anything of the sort. Look at Red Hat, Oracle, Suse, IBM and other giant open source companies and their support models.
I would have disagreed with this if XOA hung their hat on being open source but the main page doesn't even mention that, but they don't.
As for the others, I have no idea how they do support - only that you, Scott, have told me that if you can get your hands on the RHEL install media, you can install and use it as much as you want, because the software is completely free. But, they cloak that fact behind their support contracts, making the install media challenging to get directly from them.
I lol'd. You aren't wrong.
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
This makes no sense and does not mirror the market at all. They are willing to pay this for support today, making the product open source just increases the value of the whole thing, it does not decrease it in any way. Whatever they are paying today logically they would be willing to pay the same or more for a better overall support and software package.
Of course those who where already paying will likely keep paying, And as I mentioned, if they don't care about supporting SMB, then you're right, there would be no change. But if they want to try to gain some support revenues, they might offer a less expensive option in hopes of getting SMBs to buy it.
Might offer a less expensive, but that's purely looking to grow additional revenue streams. They already are set to stay or gain ground just from getting more exposure, more support, etc. You are taking the talk of offering their code as FOSS and jumping from that to the assumption that they will then add new support structures and applying assumptions about that new business model to the FOSS release. One does not create the other. If they wanted SMB revenue in that way, they'd be doing it that way today without being FOSS, so it's not applicable.
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
XO's has nothing to do and as you know should never be used as an example for anything because their pricing is 100% set without the market and has nothing to do with being open source, free, who will buy it or anything of the sort. Look at Red Hat, Oracle, Suse, IBM and other giant open source companies and their support models.
I would have disagreed with this if XOA hung their hat on being open source but the main page doesn't even mention that, but they don't.
As for the others, I have no idea how they do support - only that you, Scott, have told me that if you can get your hands on the RHEL install media, you can install and use it as much as you want, because the software is completely free. But, they cloak that fact behind their support contracts, making the install media challenging to get directly from them.
What does any of this have to do with the XO pricing model?
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
As for the others, I have no idea how they do support
They all have free products and paid support. All of them.
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@dashrender said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
But, they cloak that fact behind their support contracts, making the install media challenging to get directly from them.
Making a free product and providing a download service for a free product are totally different things. There is no cloaking or anything of the sort. RHEL is free, always has been. That THEY don't provide you a download link to it is neither here nor there. That THEY don't advertise this and make a big deal of it is neither here nor there. That they only have a marketing and sales team to sell support doesn't constitute a cloak.
You are confusing something being free with one particular vendor not advertising this fact. All kinds of things are free and people don't pay to push them, that doesn't make them cloaked.
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ThirdLane has things like this, which users like...
I know FreePBX is working on something like it. But...
They don't have anything to link Salesforce, Hubspot, and CRM apps, or click to call in the browser. Unless I am missing something.
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I've been thinking about how these conversations go online and searching throughout SW posts where the typical OP is looking for a good pbx, hosted, but no one wants to pay the $20 to $30 per user anymore. Then they are shown FreePBX, where you end up seeing them on freepbx forums getting their ass owner for not being a life long asterisk guru. Exchange server was this way for a while then hosted exchange went from $16/mailbox down to $4/mail per month. FOSS didn't fix this, economy of scale did. And for some reason Hosted PBX hasn't reached this.
I wonder if the solutions is about FOSS, or if it's not more about why there isn't a "voip.ms or flowroute for Hosted PBX"
Something simple, per device or extension at a bare bones cost. Perhaps bring your trunk from major providers that are peered in (voip.ms, twilio, telnyx)
If you could get something cheap and reliable on Hosted PBX that didn't force you to give up your control over your trunks, and was a la cartel monthly service like the new trunk providers are, would they negate the need for FreePBX?
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@bigbear said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
I've been thinking about how these conversations go online and searching throughout SW posts where the typical OP is looking for a good pbx, hosted, but no one wants to pay the $20 to $30 per user anymore. Then they are shown FreePBX, where you end up seeing them on freepbx forums getting their ass owner for not being a life long asterisk guru. Exchange server was this way for a while then hosted exchange went from $16/mailbox down to $4/mail per month. FOSS didn't fix this, economy of scale did. And for some reason Hosted PBX hasn't reached this.
I wonder if the solutions is about FOSS, or if it's not more about why there isn't a "voip.ms or flowroute for Hosted PBX"
Something simple, per device or extension at a bare bones cost. Perhaps bring your trunk from major providers that are peered in (voip.ms, twilio, telnyx)
If you could get something cheap and reliable on Hosted PBX that didn't force you to give up your control over your trunks, and was a la cartel monthly service like the new trunk providers are, would they negate the need for FreePBX?
You mean like @NTG and @Bundy-Associates do?
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@scottalanmiller said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
@bigbear said in Let's Convince Someone to release a FOSS PBX:
I've been thinking about how these conversations go online and searching throughout SW posts where the typical OP is looking for a good pbx, hosted, but no one wants to pay the $20 to $30 per user anymore. Then they are shown FreePBX, where you end up seeing them on freepbx forums getting their ass owner for not being a life long asterisk guru. Exchange server was this way for a while then hosted exchange went from $16/mailbox down to $4/mail per month. FOSS didn't fix this, economy of scale did. And for some reason Hosted PBX hasn't reached this.
I wonder if the solutions is about FOSS, or if it's not more about why there isn't a "voip.ms or flowroute for Hosted PBX"
Something simple, per device or extension at a bare bones cost. Perhaps bring your trunk from major providers that are peered in (voip.ms, twilio, telnyx)
If you could get something cheap and reliable on Hosted PBX that didn't force you to give up your control over your trunks, and was a la cartel monthly service like the new trunk providers are, would they negate the need for FreePBX?
You mean like @NTG and @Bundy-Associates do?
Yeah, I've been in that same business. But say you just pay $2/device. I don't know if it could get to $1/device. Our cost was in between that with 15,000 devices at my old company.
But we had border controllers, better security, regional failover, a custom sip stack to support it. I would imagine Onsip is the closest thing in the market to this but they charge .03 per minute and require you to use their trunks.
You guys are Hosted FreePBX I believe and maintaining the individual customer installation separately, so the cost you charge make sense.
Pbxes does hosting but it's not a multi-server deployment, just an HA failover. In a real carrier setup you can reboot any server for maintenance and the live phone calls are moved to the other servers automatically. Or when capacity is reached a new sip server spins up to add capacity, then may be turned down an hour later.
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And I guess my point being, perhaps a better strategy could be to convince someone to launch a service with this type of economy of scale.
I see the some cost per device in play on sites like PBXES. The probably is there multi-tenancy is likely based on multiple asterisk isntances. With freeswitch mult-tenancy can be done on any installation with domains.
If I guy comes along "Hey I got 18 phones at 3 locations." I would be like "Hey, $36 per month and use the available trunking service or bring your supported Twilio, Voip.MS, Flowroute trunks to this Hosted PBX service and be done with it"
Then hopefully we would see the features added that everyone wants.
Or maybe FOSS is the answer and I am off on a tangent. Was just thinking about how Email eventually got cheap enough that you didnt even want to run your own server.
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I think that a major issue I see with PBX is that unlike email, phone calls are too complex for normal end users to even define what it is that they want. So if you do this, you have end users that can't figure out ring groups, hunt groups, security, IVRs and so forth. That's the majority of the cost in the existing hosted services - not the PBX, setup and hosting - but doing the stuff that the end users could do on their own only theoretically.
