IBM and 3Com Plan First Internet Telephony Suite 70
TechnoGuyRob writes "IBM and 3Com, a company best known for its computer network infrastructure products, are teaming up to provide the world's first IP telephony suite. From the article: 'IBM and 3Com intend to offer the 3Com VCX suite of IP telephony Relevant Products/Services from solutions on IBM's System i business-computing platform... This means clients will be able to run business and telephony applications simultaneously managed by the System i's tools.' The application is intended for the Linux-on-Power operating system; so yes, it will run Linux."
Asterisk? (Score:5, Informative)
...other than Asterisk [asterisk.org], right? Or is this somehow much better?
Re:Asterisk? (Score:2)
>
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It's better because you have to pay IBM consultants for it.
"IBM Consulting: Or you'll regret that you had only one Asterisk when the boss put you in charge of the company's VOIP rollout!"
IP Telepathy (Score:2)
Re:Asterisk? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not just software (Score:2)
Not sure is Asterix handles all that...
Yeah it handles all that plus voice mail, conference calls, sending voice mail as email attachments and a slew of other features. Also, the company that produces Asterisk, Digium, produce a number of devices such as T1/E1 c
Re:Not just software (Score:2)
Re:Not just software (Score:2)
It's certainly not bug-free but I have an installation that's been running fairly solidly for a few months. Needs a kick in the guts once every six weeks or so due to - you guessed it - zapata drivers.
my 4-port FXO card
Is it a Digium card?
some lines mysteriously disappear, Asterisk not answering them, or answering them with an ear-piercing squeal.
Gah! This shouldn't be that hard dude but I doubt it's Asterisk. Sorry to hear you've practically given up. It may not even be t
Get it right (Score:1, Flamebait)
Also, link an article that actually says something useful. This looks like a press release. It doesn't give any details as to how, where, or even when (and if I had a dollar for every time something on Slashdot was "announced" without a market date and never actually was released, well, I'd buy Slashdot...or something).
Re:Get it right (Score:3, Informative)
Here's some articles with more information:
TMCnet [google.com]
InformationWeek [informationweek.com]
TechNews [technologynewsdaily.com]
Re:Get it right (Score:2)
Most would just throw a fit (like I did, mostly because I was about to sit through a ridiculously boring finance graduate course). You provided actual helpful information. We need more of you around here.
This is way better than asterisk (Score:5, Interesting)
For a business to really base itself on an internet telephony platform, they need it hooked into a set of software allowing reporting, processing, etc. In its current incarnation, Asterisk provides a very simple Call Data Record output to ODBC or MySql. That's about it. Beyond that, the programmer has to invoke Perl AGI scripts along the way or make SQL queries from inside Asterisk's clunky extensions.conf configuration language.
Bottom line is that your business intelligence platform winds up being a bunch of homebrew Perl scripts. Not my idea of a fun time.
What IBM will put together is a set of tools where you can build the business intelligence platform alongside the PBX functionality that Asterisk makes in a completely integrated fashion, using object oriented tools, etc. Anyone considering building a mission-critical system on Asterisk should read over the extensions.conf file format for a little bit. It uses line numbers and Goto as its major flow control mechanisms. I thought those went out with Commodore 64 BASIC programming.
It's true that a few big companies use Asterisk. In each case they've had to tweak and rework it dramatically to make it useful. I predict this new system will blow Asterisk away.
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:5, Informative)
Let me introduce you to Asterisk@Home [sourceforge.net] which is uber-easy to configure (get your PBX up and running in an hour or two!), or if the "@Home" name is too objectionable for your PHB, the shiny Asterisk@Work [voip-info.org] logo so you can convince him that an open source project is suited for business use.
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, Asterisk is more like a framework, not a solution. The article summmary says it all: "IBM and 3com Plan First Internet Telephony SUITE".
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Well that's great for companies that have money to blow. The $40,000 we blew on our Nortel system was not well spent. The system is a piece of junk, runs on os/2, crashes at least once every 2 - 3 months, and randomly drops calls.
Oh yeah.. and we've maxed out our queues, there is a limit on the number of mailboxes you have, and routing is clunky.
We're in the process of upgrading to an Asterisk system because... well... because it just does 'everything'.
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
- Asterisk with preconfigured scripts typical for most companies (you just need to define the calling plan via a point-and-click interface). You get a call queue monitor (Flash Operator Panel) that puts any conventional PBX ACD monitor to shame, a web interface to voice mail, extremely detailed call logs, (theoretically) unlimited expansion capability, all pre-integrated with a quasi-open-source CRM (SugarCRM).
Ever set up a conventional
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Well you are right you DO have some major issues... I called your number... Not only was there an aweful echo, but there was no hold music... what can't figure that out?
I have asterisk running, no echo, hold music is fine, handeling tons of calls a day.
Exactly what major 'hacks' did you have to do to get your agents to log into the system, and then do CDR on them and the queue?!
If you mean you had to program Ag
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
While given that Asterix is open source, of course he could do a great deal with programming, up to and including completely rearchitecting the core system if need be. However, for a business this is not necessarily ideal.
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:1)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can't program Asterisk, you are just a stupid moron who can't read and learn, I'm sorry. Asterisk is a PBX. If you want accounting, load an accounting module. If you are looking to sell PBX systems, presumably once you've built a system or two, you'll know what you need! If you are looking for something for work.. the 'clunky' interface is what makes Asterisk so great! PERL is not clunky.
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Believe it or not, some people want to do more with a telephony system than provide a basic PBX system (read my sig-line for an example). For more complex situations, there are things that Asterisk simply cannot do. For example, out of the box Asterisk won't allow me to grab a call back once I've dialed it out without waiting for the
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
We realized we had a problem.. when I thought... hrmm asterisk!
About 5 minutes later and 50 lines of code the asterisk system was now routing calls.. If
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
ME--->Queue
ME--->Given Number
You want to pull me back out of the queue? How about just have your operator transfer the call to an extension and punch in a callcode?
IE: XFER-->201
"Please enter the call code"
ENTER: 1123#
Your call codes wouldn't need to be that long as you could recycle them.
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
ie:
LEG1 --> Leg1 Of call
LEG2 --> The call you are sending out with Dail()
Why would you need to send the ENTIRE call out the other trunk?
If you are waiting for someone to answer, have them hit something if they answer, otherwise send it along to another trunk.
If your 800-411 operators are at their houses, why aren't they using sip phones? If they are using regular phones, and once the operator gets the number you want to grab it back to the asterisk system, ju
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
Let's say I'm a telcom manager at a large-ish company. I've got two choices here. On the one hand I've got my long-haired-hippie linux geek telling me that he can totally hack together a system around Asterisk. On the other hand I have a major corporation trying to sell me a product.
It seems a no-brainer to me. Unless I acquire some sort of obvious advantage (other than cost) why should I bring the development knowledge in house? I'll just end up with some system that's hard to maintain
But it's not even close to Yate (Score:2, Informative)
All people talk about is Asterisk. Meanwhile there's the OpenSource solution (even GPL) called Yate [yate.null.ro]; which handles a magnitude larger number of calls than Asterisk on the same hardware, it has the (currently still unique) perfect NAT-proof algorithm for SIP, it has excellent support for H.323, and, last but not least, the company supporting it insists to do paid work only when it results in (new) GPLed code.
Yate handles business-logic integration just fine with predefined hooks (I used a PostgreSQL back
Re:But it's not even close to Yate (Score:2)
I think that says it all... Asterisk is just nicer.
Re:This is way better than asterisk... RAGI? (Score:2)
Re:This is way better than asterisk (Score:2)
I am guessing that you do not code. Allmost all languages have line numbers(labels)/goto. More importantly, the major apps(think an OS) make heavy use of these. I can tell you that an *nix use it for error handling. In addition, I have seen the NT code for pre-3.5 NT (working at HP Ft. Collins; MS wanted us to port to the pa-risc; no go after seeing their code). It was loaded with goto's as well.
Dynamicsoft!!! (Score:2)
No
3Com Still Around...? (Score:1, Offtopic)
On a side note, my first modem was a USR 2400 internal.
Tags (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tags (Score:1)
Not Linux news.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Linux news.... (Score:2)
Re:Not Linux news.... (Score:1)
Actually, 3Com VCX system does run on Linux (a RHEL clone, to be more precise). I've been working on it for the last couple of years...
ZM
Re:Not Linux news.... (Score:2)
Re:Not Linux news.... (Score:1)
Re:Not Linux news.... (Score:1)
Re:Not Linux news.... (Score:2)
Ahhh 3com (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly why we are dumping our Nortel phone system for Asterisk. Proprietary stuff is junk! The Nortel crashes, drops calls, is clunky. The ACD monitoring software (Cinphony) REQUIRES that it be run on an IIS server as 'Administrator' rather then the Internet account. When questioned the company said "yeah don't put that server on the outside of your firewall". I said what?! That's not acceptable, you can't run an application as 'administrator'. They said 'well that is how it runs, sorry'.
Problem is, once you have a large system like that put in for a call center, you can't exactly "just return it". We spent the good part of 2 years fighting the company that put in the Nortel and Cintech (Makers of Cinphony) to get it to work right. To this day it only transfers a call out of a queue to a land-line when it feels like it.
Oh and don't even get me started about "The routing resources needed for this call are not available" if you have a transfer to an external number from one of the menu trees on the Nortel.... apparently you can only have 1 outbound transfer from a CCR tree?!?!
This is why I hate proprietary software.... it doesn't work, and they don't support it!
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:1)
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:3, Informative)
I think that free/open software is starting to be backed up by companies that are able to provide the technical support for any kind of issues. A few companies which do that are: Null Team which supports Yate, Digium which support
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:1)
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:2)
Why not use a scalable Open Source solution? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why not use a scalable Open Source solution? (Score:2)
http://yate.null.ro/pmwiki/index.php/Main/Transfer s [yate.null.ro]
Transfering a call and three way calling is listed as a "feature request", I don't know how you can possibly recommend such obviously alpha telephony software.
I'm not trying to say that Asterisk is the end all be all, its not, and maybe Yate will come up and be a better solution, but right now, without basic PBX
Re:Why not use a scalable Open Source solution? (Score:1)
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:1)
ZM
Re:Ahhh 3com (Score:2)
Monster Mash (Score:2, Informative)
Only thing that concerns me concerning competetiveness, are the new fcc telco rules and related pending legislation, the stuff that will make it easy for monsters like IBM and 3com to pay premiums for better ISP service.
Interesting opensource telephony suite (Score:1, Informative)
Headline Misleading (Score:2, Insightful)
It did get me to RTFA, which is the purpose of a headline, but it was misleading. The actual article was not particularly interesting.
Re: (Score:1)
"It will run Linux" (Score:1)
Seen last week... (Score:1)
3Com was at the Spring COMMON user group conference (for System i) in Minneapolis last week showing this.While at the moment they're running it on an xSeries server, the System i port is forthcoming. I had some time to speak with them about it, and like what I see.
I have to say this was a really slick solution and as a System i, iSeries bigot, a g