Selling Unified Communications to small Business
DexterPark
Member Posts: 121
in Off-Topic
Hello everyone!
I have a co-worker who wants me to help him start up a side-business selling small offices in our area a very cheap, feature packed UC solution and charging them a little bit of money every month to support. I was thinking about using an open-source solution since they are free, and without licencing costs, otherwise I would be thinking about a Cisco UC500. Another reason not to go the UC500 route is because these are really small businesses, roughly 10 - 30 users apiece and the UC500 can scale up to a few hundred which is awesome from an IT standpoint but not very economical for an office that just wants it to plug into the corner and work with low complexity.
I was thinking Asterisk or Elastix which are both great products if you have ever played with them. My question for today is:
Which UC solution would you use, and what hardware? Would you suggest going analog or SIP? Thanks!
I have a co-worker who wants me to help him start up a side-business selling small offices in our area a very cheap, feature packed UC solution and charging them a little bit of money every month to support. I was thinking about using an open-source solution since they are free, and without licencing costs, otherwise I would be thinking about a Cisco UC500. Another reason not to go the UC500 route is because these are really small businesses, roughly 10 - 30 users apiece and the UC500 can scale up to a few hundred which is awesome from an IT standpoint but not very economical for an office that just wants it to plug into the corner and work with low complexity.
I was thinking Asterisk or Elastix which are both great products if you have ever played with them. My question for today is:
Which UC solution would you use, and what hardware? Would you suggest going analog or SIP? Thanks!
My advice to anyone looking to advance their career would be to learn DevOps tools and methodologies. Learn how to write code in languages like Python and JavaScript. Not to be a programmer, but a network automation specialist who can do the job of 10 engineers in 1/3 of the time. Create a GitHub account, download PyCharm, play with Ansible, Chef, or Puppet. Automation isn't the future, it's here today and the landscape is changing dramatically.
Comments
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veritas_libertas
Member Posts: 5,746 ■■■■■■■■■■
Asterisk was my first thought. I have a coworker who is doing exactly what you are talking about on the side. -
shodown
Member Posts: 2,271
veritas_libertas wrote: »Asterisk was my first thought. I have a coworker who is doing exactly what you are talking about on the side.
Check your PMCurrently Reading
CUCM SRND 9x/10, UCCX SRND 10x, QOS SRND, SIP Trunking Guide, anything contact center related -
DexterPark
Member Posts: 121
Ok, so I'm leaning towards Switchvox because it looks a lot cleaner and wider adapted even though it is not free. It seems to require a licence per a user. But at this point I am totally into it. I wonder if a small, small business would go for it? Like 1-10 users. It would be about $1000 - $3000 for the Switchvox appliance, plus $70 a head for licences, and $130 per a phone! With cheap labor costs it could be done for under $5000.
I don't see a one man plumber business jumping all over this unless we could sell him a CRM that would feed him leads. Maybe that could help justify the expense because hey, that's just the cost of doing business. what do you guys think?My advice to anyone looking to advance their career would be to learn DevOps tools and methodologies. Learn how to write code in languages like Python and JavaScript. Not to be a programmer, but a network automation specialist who can do the job of 10 engineers in 1/3 of the time. Create a GitHub account, download PyCharm, play with Ansible, Chef, or Puppet. Automation isn't the future, it's here today and the landscape is changing dramatically. -
saspro
Member Posts: 114
Take a look at 3cx. I've scaled these from 5 users to 200 users and providing you've got a good enough PC running it then it's just a key upgrade to unlock more calls.