[VoiceOps] 2015 Softswitch

Mon Nov 2 10:34:41 EST 2015

Peter,

I am selling to small and medium sized business customer. We also have
residential side for an ISP. Our average seat selling price today is
between $25 to $35 per seat, so no I am not trying to sell on low price.

However, I personally hate selling to the customer when I know what else is
out there today. I hate explaining time and time again that we have to
charge for every auto attendant, voicemail box, etc. I am running out of
excuses to tell the end customer when they say "well Vonage Business has
the same $35 price per seat you do, but they have text messaging, call
recording, CRM integration, voicemail to text, mobile apps, etc." You don't
have any of that, so explain to me why your platform, at the same premium
price is better?

We have to provide enough value to ensure people continue to buy and use
their desk phones and/or apps, otherwise everyone is going to just stat
using their cell phones for everything. Its getting to the point where cell
phones are cheaper both on the hardware, service side, and provider a
better set of features. Voice quality used to be the concern, but have you
heard HD voice on VoLTE? Sounds amazing, better than any desk phone I have
used. Plus with wifi calling hard to say well coverage is an area of
concern.

So we either adapt to something that has value, or we continue to loose
customers.

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Peter Rad. <peter at 4isps.com> wrote:

> You didn't get my whole point.
>
> Customers want the same cheaper -- because that is how we trained them to
> think.
> That is how we "sell" in telecom. We take orders while driving the price
> to zero because (A) we don't value sales and marketing as a sector of the
> economy; and (B) this has traditionally been an arbitrage business.
> However, low prices only work in mass scale with automation.
>
> First criteria of picking a switch is What are you selling and to who?
>
> It sounds like you want the cheapest switch available so you can sell at
> $10 per seat.
> That doesn't scale at all. The vendor can't support that. You can't scale
> that.
> To support software you have to have revenue. Hence, per seat licensing or
> maintenance fees.
> BSFT may be expensive but it has proven to scale -  over 1M trunks from XO
> and WIND and 10K seats added per month by an MSO. You pay for that. That
> said. You don't need something that would scale like that.
>
> NetSapiens is a great platform, but how would they continue to support it
> with a flat rate price?
>
> When M5 dumped their M6 platform and built their own, they paid 75 devs to
> support it. That is overhead! Talent, hiring, benefits, management, etc.
> We had a great discussion about this at ITEXPO in 2 panels with Dialogic,
> XO and Netsapiens (see summary:
> http://www.dialogic.com/den/d/b/corporate/archive/2015/10/14/nfv-and-open-source-explored-at-itexpo.aspx).
> We are doing it again at ITEXPO in Ft Lauderdale in January.  Join in.
>
> Colton,  you have this idea that this should all be one turn key system
> for practically free. This is exactly the kind of customer mentality that
> everyone complains about. Free music, free movies, free content, free
> software.  This isn't the first time you asked for switch recommendations
> either. So you are searching for Bigfoot.
>
> In business, you cannot be all things to all people. That is the Duopoly -
> average things for the mass market.
>
> The CLEC industry has always been fringe. Today, you either sell on price
> (and eventually lose to someone cheaper like say Microsoft) - or you put
> together a value prop for a specific target and you sell to those 1000
> customers, then the next 1000 and so on.
>
> If HPBX was about price, someone would already own the market. And no one
> really does.  It is a SIP trunk world.
>
> The HPBX industry is littered with open source. Linux, Apache, PHP,
> OpenStack, Asterisk, OpenSRS, DNS, JPG -- all open source, buddy.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter Radizeski
> RAD-INFO, Inc.
> 813.963.5884
> http://rad-info.net
>
> 2015 Hosted PBX Market Report:
> http://www.onradsradar.com/2015/09/2015-hosted-pbx-market-overview.html
>
>
>
>
>
> On 11/2/2015 9:04 AM, Colton Conor wrote:
>
> I agree that people are looking for a better value proposition in Hosted
> PBX providers, but as Peter said most just want a cheaper version of what
> they have. Which means service providers must either shrink their margins,
> or go with a cheaper platform that allows them to offer more value and keep
> the margins. So as Alex said, If you're going to sell glorified POTS/key
> system replacement, commoditised down to ever-shrinking ARPUs, why in the
> hell would you pay Broadsoft prices on those ports? Talk about paying the
> most to get the least. Those are some of the most expensive ports in the
> known universe. "
>
> Ideally I would love a platform that didn't have per seat or user fees.
> Just a base fee for the platform.
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 8:00 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I have taken a look at Enswitch by Integrics. Looks like
>> a solid platform, but a little concerned about the user interface and
>> overall design of the platform. Its not as polished as I would like it to
>> be, but overall seems nice. For the price it seems like an awesome system.
>> I don't like the tough of Asterisk being the core of the product.
>>
>> So far based on recommendations I see Broadsoft, Metaswitch, NetSapiens,
>> and Enswitch by Integrics as options. I am going to throw out 2600hz as
>> a platform that might evolve into a solution to use, but its not there yet.
>>
>> Besides these 5, are there any other recommendations?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Alex Balashov <
>> <abalashov at evaristesys.com>abalashov at evaristesys.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Have you considered Enswitch by Integrics?
>>>
>>> ‎It's the best of breed of the sort of thing that it is. Moreover, if
>>> you'll tolerate BW price points, you'll think it's practically free.
>>>
>>> ‎ <https://integrics.com/enswitch/>https://integrics.com/enswitch/
>>>
>>> It's got the API and integration path requirement covered, too. I know
>>> about a dozen operators and they're all pretty happy with it.
>>>
>>> If you talk to Alistair Cunningham, their director, be sure to relate
>>> that Alex Balashov sends his regards.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC
>>> 303 Perimeter Center North, Suite 300
>>> Atlanta, GA 30346
>>> United States
>>>
>>> Tel: +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) / +1-678-954-0671 (direct)
>>> Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/,  <http://www.csrpswitch.com/>
>>> http://www.csrpswitch.com/
>>>
>>>
>
>
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