Federico Alves
2005-Oct-10 05:12 UTC
[Asterisk-Users] My contribution to the issue of code- reversal
Four years ago, I faced a real dilemma in my business: the Visual Voice PRI dll had a bug that considered unanswered any call after ringing for 20 seconds. This bug was in fact killing my business, because for international calling, the setup of the call was already close to 20 seconds on many cases. Furthermore, the vendor, Artisoft, had cowardly sold the software to Dialogic, and Intel-Dialogic had killed the product. There was no support. I had to bite the bullet and buy a reverse-assembler (IDA-Pro), from a Belgium company. I had to lock myself down in the lab for a week, until I understood the location of exactly the right byte that was wrong, and replaced it at a binary level for a 40 hex. Bingo. I made a living out of selling my pre-paid platform for another two years, until I adapted Asterisk to replace Dialogic and now I am paying my bills thanks to Asterisk. If I had not solved, my existing clients would have looked elsewhere for a solution, and I had failed to sell more switches. If Visual Voice had been open-source, I would not had faced the terrible pressure to understand every single step of assembler code required. So we need to reverse code and it surely is a legitimate operation. Open source is far more convenient, but how do we charge for the product? The business model is not there: the more popular the product is, the more remote the possibility of the creator making any money from it. Take Digium. The more experts on Asterisk pop-up, the less demand is for Digium services. In fact, having tried Asterisk support from Digium and others, I think the best Asterisk people --like Jeremy, Shido and swk286-- are somewhere else. So the question is: how do we make sure that the creator of the product makes even one dollar from every copy put in use of his creation? The answer is: there is no answer. There is where Microsoft wins. Additionally, Microsoft support services do know their products, and if they fail to behave, they fix it. Digium made me once spend $150 and they could not make res_odbc work, etc. I stopped using Digium support because there is no way to know how many hours or dollars is going to take to fix anything, while with others I pay for the result, not for the time. The success is guaranteed. Regarding open-source-closed source, the future holds a mixed-model in the store, and we are yet to discover it.
Tzafrir Cohen
2005-Oct-10 13:35 UTC
[Asterisk-Users] My contribution to the issue of code- reversal
Hi Broken into paragraphs, so people can actually read. I will not address the content, as it has been rehashed ienough here and elsewhere. Please read, e.g. http://perens.com/Articles/Economic.html before posting anything in reply to this thread or anything similar. On Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 08:12:07AM -0400, Federico Alves wrote:> Four years ago, I faced a real dilemma in my business: the Visual Voice PRI > dll had a bug that considered unanswered any call after ringing for 20 > seconds. This bug was in fact killing my business, because for international > calling, the setup of the call was already close to 20 seconds on many > cases. Furthermore, the vendor, Artisoft, had cowardly sold the software to > Dialogic, and Intel-Dialogic had killed the product. There was no support. > > I had to bite the bullet and buy a reverse-assembler (IDA-Pro), from a Belgium > company. I had to lock myself down in the lab for a week, until I understood > the location of exactly the right byte that was wrong, and replaced it at a > binary level for a 40 hex. Bingo. I made a living out of selling my pre-paid > platform for another two years, until I adapted Asterisk to replace Dialogic > and now I am paying my bills thanks to Asterisk. > > If I had not solved, my > existing clients would have looked elsewhere for a solution, and I had > failed to sell more switches. If Visual Voice had been open-source, I would > not had faced the terrible pressure to understand every single step of > assembler code required. So we need to reverse code and it surely is a > legitimate operation. > > Open source is far more convenient, but how do we > charge for the product? The business model is not there: the more popular > the product is, the more remote the possibility of the creator making any > money from it. > > Take Digium. The more experts on Asterisk pop-up, the less > demand is for Digium services. In fact, having tried Asterisk support from > Digium and others, I think the best Asterisk people --like Jeremy, Shido and > swk286-- are somewhere else. So the question is: how do we make sure that > the creator of the product makes even one dollar from every copy put in use > of his creation? The answer is: there is no answer. There is where Microsoft > wins. > > Additionally, Microsoft support services do know their products, and > if they fail to behave, they fix it. Digium made me once spend $150 and they > could not make res_odbc work, etc. I stopped using Digium support because > there is no way to know how many hours or dollars is going to take to fix > anything, while with others I pay for the result, not for the time. The > success is guaranteed. Regarding open-source-closed source, the future holds > a mixed-model in the store, and we are yet to discover it.-- Tzafrir Cohen | tzafrir@jbr.cohens.org.il | VIM is http://tzafrir.org.il | | a Mutt's tzafrir@cohens.org.il | | best ICQ# 16849755 | | friend
Andrew Kohlsmith
2005-Oct-11 11:26 UTC
[Asterisk-Users] My contribution to the issue of code- reversal
On Monday 10 October 2005 08:12, Federico Alves wrote:> reverse code and it surely is a legitimate operation. Open source is far > more convenient, but how do we charge for the product? The business model > is not there: the more popular the product is, the more remote the > possibility of the creator making any money from it. Take Digium. The more > experts on Asterisk pop-up, the less demand is for Digium services. InThis is *precisely* why I believe that Digium's current model is terribly wrong. They are competing with the very people that make Digium money. In my humble opinion, I believe that Digium should not offer support to end users. I believe that Digium should not offer hardware sales to end users. You simply cannot have distribution and sell direct -- it does NOT work and you only end up alienating your distributors, the very people who find your customers in the first place. Think about it: How many times do you think someone is going to point a potential customer to you if you just turn around and sell for the same price they sell at or lower? Where's their incentive? Distribution (in my opinion, again) is a manufacturer's best friend. You can have a thousand distributors scattered around the world, digging out customers in every kind of niche imaginable. The distributors and resellers know their market segments and have the relationships with the end users already. Distributors already have the trust of the end users, something Digium will find much harder to earn. Again, think about it: If a guy you've been dealing with for 5 years says that this new piece of equipment will do what you want, do you find it easier to believe him than if you just found someone on the internet claiming the same thing? What about if you did a little research and found that a full 50% of the reviews on this piece of equipment said it was marginal or hard to get working? Would you try it on your own, or would you prefer if that guy you know said that he himself has gotten it to work and can help you with yours? If Digium were to try and match this level of interaction they would have to have thousands of salespeople around the world drumming up business and trying to cultivate relationships with all the onesie-twosie buyers out there because let's face it, that's where the bulk of the sales will be. Finding the Nufones of the world, the companies who know what they're doing and buy a LOT of equipment from you aren't exactly commonplace. Let the distributors and reslellers work their own existing markets and business relationships. Give them the volume discounts and hell, maybe even offer them a few points more if they agree to stock $x of your equipment at all times. YOUR infrastructure costs drop, YOUR support costs drop and your sales INCREASE. As someone who's been working for an OEM for the last decade and has seen both sides of this coin, it's a no-brainer. How about the consultant side of things? How do you make your money when you are trying to cultivate and enitre business subculture around your product? Through licensing and support of the distribution and consultants. You provide tier-1 support and training materials to registered consultants around the globe. Perhaps a modest yearly license in exchange for a "Digium Certified Asterisk Professional" -- make the damn DCAP *MEAN* something instead of the meaningless acronym most of the people feel it is today! Don't just give a more-or-less textbook test and say "hey you're a DCAP now!" Make it mean something. Give a REAL certificate, maybe those embossed gold stars with the year in them -- something physical, something they can hang with pride and show potential clients. YES it costs money to do that, but you're trying to MAKE money with this! Want ABE? Get it through a licensed Digium reseller. Need ABE support? Again, here's a list of certified ABE consultants. Point them offsite to the wiki for a list of other consultants and IRC and the mailing lists for "self-serve" support. It takes a little bit of infrastructure, sure, but again it's all about presentation. You simply don't sell to end users on a web store if you've got distribution. All you end up doing is stabbing these people in the back, the very people who are getting you these customers in the first place! You either have distribution and you work with them and cultivate business relationships with them, or you sell direct and pay the price in terms of a) not having the market penetration you want or b) have an insane number of sales employees to keep track of and trained in order to achieve the desired market penetration. You don't do both. Similarly, you simply do not offer end-user support if you're trying to cultivate consultants. You either create the infrastructure for the consultants to make their living supporting your products (knowlegebase, registered support network, "intranet", certification) or you support your product on your own and spend the money on increased customer service staff and overhead that way. There are ways of doing both here (expensive support to end-users, hardware-only support within the warranty period, etc.) but it's trickier. Wow. That's a lot of text, and it's all just subjective opinion. As I said though, I've been in this type of business (OEM) for the last ten years or so and I've seen manufacturers double-cross their distribution just to make the sale. Nine times out of ten, they don't get another opportunity from the same distributor. Similarly, I've seen companies "take" support opportunities away from consultants. Sometimes it's been ok because the consultant was inept or was way over his head, but sometimes the manufacturer simply undercut the consultant, and the consultant recommended other products the next time around. It's a tricky game. -A.