asterisk users - Feb 2009 - Open Source in an Economic Downturn: Asterisk stories

>
> >> I'm giving a talk at SCALE 2009 (Southern CAlifornia Linux
Expo) on
> >> Sunday in Los Angeles, and the topic of my talk is "Open
Source in an
> >> Economic Downturn".  I've got lots of talking points for
this talk,
> >> but it would be interesting to hear some short anecdotes about how
you
> >> in the Asterisk community are thriving, or at least surviving, by
> >> virtue of the benefits of Open Source.  I find that real-world
> >> examples are worth more than all of the bullet points in the
world,
> >> and timely stories from the community would be more interesting
than
> >> hearing me prattle on.
> >>
>
I'm a Texas based service provider, VoIP and Internet for business
customers.  The last 2 month are actually picking up a bit.  We are finding
that business folks are really wanting less expensive alternatives for voice
and data services, not so much for the new VoIP technology we offer.  A year
ago, we really had to effectively sell the new technological advantages and
promote business enhancing solutions based on voice and data convergence.
Now it is all about the bottom line cost.  I'm not real concerned for the
reason businesses are buying our service, but I'm glad they are.

Competitively speaking, we are seeing the LEC (ATT) and other CLEC providers
dropping their prices to capture market share.  They are getting real
aggressive, but it make a good statement about why their prices where
high for the past few years.  The technology and how it is delivered has not
changed much over the past year so the "Economic Downturn" has
affected them
enough to reposition their margin strategies.

JR
-- 
JR Richardson
Engineering for the Masses
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