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Comment by zkinion | Hacker News Reader

Asterisk isn't all that special. I used it extensively a few years back with my last business. Its still a bitch to use and get going right, especially for businesses with crappy IT going for them.

It goes back to that PG quote, that went something like: "Somebody can outhack an oracle database and make something comparable in open source, but can't out sell an oracle sales man..." It was basically that these enterprize software companies (pbx certainly is enterprize software), are used to buying terrible stuff for too much money.

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The exciting thing about Asterisk to me is not how well it can replicate traditional PBXs, but that it allows you to deal with voice communications programmatically, with a very low barrier to entry. This allows all kinds of experimentation with voice and touch tone, which was previously inaccessible to hackers in an accessible way. Having a UI option for input/output that works with any touch tone phone is starting to produce interesting projects. I've used Asterisk for a real-world game and an automated booty call system (ahem). And friends of mine are using it as an interface for games on large screens (playmegaphone.com) and an interface for networked objects (botanicalls.com). These are things it was never intended to do, but because it's turned the phone system into software, you can hack it and repurpose it. And that's why it's interesting, not the fact that it may-or-may-not replace corporate PBXs.

Is the part about it being "a bitch to use and get going right" based on your extensive use of it a few years back? Linux was a bitch to use and to get going right when I first started using it back in the 1990's.

Hmmmm, I guess I wasn't posting to news.yc standards. My apologies.

My point was that I didn't see it destroying cisco/avaya any time soon, due to the nature of enterprise software and the sales distribution channel.

Linux is still not the ideal desktop replacement, even today. It has its place on the server rack, thats for sure, but I don't see it replacing windows any time soon for all uses. Something else might.

No standards and don't take it personally. I was simply asking if your opinion was based on recent use of Asterisk or your experience from a few years ago. Software evolves, sometimes in a good way.

I disagree with "isn't all that special".

I've worked with it too. It's a PBX/ACD/IVR all in one. That's huge. Get these bundled together from a commercial vendor and you are paying through the nose on a per seat basis. Yeah, it's about as user friendly as Linux in the early days. So if that's not going to work for you, just call Avaya and get out the check book.

From what I've seen the problem is that enterprise managers don't to absorb the risk of using an open source phone system (a highly visible piece of infrastructure).

As in my response to the other guy above, "isn't all that special" really was referring to being able to compete as enterprise software against the set in distribution channel.

Yes, asterisk is great. Its probably even better now than it was a few years ago. Their mailing lists were AWESOME, and just like Linux, if I was resourceful enough, I could figure out what I needed to and if I couldn't, help was just an email away. That doesn't mean that most businesses won't just call Avaya and pull out their check book. Enterprise level software has a way of being completely bogus. Go into any medium to large (and all too often, sadly, even small) companies, and look at the garbage they use, then look how much they pay for that garbage. Then look at how they actually believe in that garbage as being the right choice.

Asterisk could certainly improve its lot in the future by changing its ease of use, and making more of an effort at being in the distribution channel.

Asterisk is in many ways a fairly standard "disruptive technology":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology

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