Quite a Week thanks to Google

As I sit here watching the Patriots-Chargers game, I reflect this past week. I can tell you I am proud to be part of the Digium executive team. We had the Google AdWord debacle this week. Read more at http://blogs.digium.com. If you are on the asterisk-biz mailing list you'd have seen the unforeseen issues caused by the approach Digium took that had to be changed a day or two later. Danny Windham, our CEO, published our relaxed policy Friday night and Saturday I posted a FAQ for further details and clarification of the most anticipated questions.

Our listening to the Asterisk community combined with our sense of urgency to do the right thing makes Digium the leader it is in both open source and VoIP.

This past week has got me thinking just how powerful Google has become. Although many of us use Google for searches every day, and use Google for marketing campaigns this has really shown us how much power has moved to Google's business model. We learned how effective their AdWords can be and how ineffective their internal process is to handle it. The reason why? Because their is so much going on with these types of situations everywhere. That is why they could not commit to turn-around time even though they say they understand our sense of urgency. Imagine how much money they actually make on AdWords. We knew there was a lot of business use/and misuse or our marks, but were truly blown away at the end of the day how many folks purchased AdWords.

Does this Google power bother anyone? If businesses go to Google to become their corporate email/calendaring system, what happens when you have a problem, will this also be ineffective? It certainly brings up a comparison of the effectiveness of customer support for Google's good products. Will it always be slow support and/or lack of sense of urgency for business? I don't know yet. But I would be concerned. We will see how fast they follow through with our current request. I will keep you all updated here as many of us do care. Maybe tomorrow it's fixed. Maybe next week. Who knows.

This is just food for thought. Nothing more, nothing less, but since we learned from this why not more of us learn from it. Happy surfing and will see you at IT Expo this week. Know what time it is? Patriots 14, Chargers 6.

IT Expo in Miami, FL

We are getting ready to go to IT Expo. It's been relatively easy this time around as we have a small group attending and working our booth; our goals are to continue to show how great Switchvox SOHO and SMB solutions are and we will have the AA50 Asterisk Appliance to show those who like this form factor in small business and remote office situations.

We will show off some new products so stop by and visit us.

Digium and 3Com are on a panel together Wednesday 1/25 at 11:00 AM to update the audience on the state of open source; the presentation will show the "big picture" of complete open source infrastructure solutions and Asterisk IP Telephony as the voice application. It will be informative.

Miami is also a lot warmer than the Northeast. Of course parts of the NE are hot - especially New England where the Patriots are blazing new trails in uncharted territory - 17 and 0 and counting; to go for yet another record!

Many of us watched the entertaining NFL playoffs this past weekend. Yes, there are football fans aplenty in Huntsville. Now we have an AFC Championship game between the Pats (my hometown) and San Diego (Switchvox's home)! No one seemed to care about the Packers and Giants. Maybe I just don't see it.

Check our corporate blog this week for new product information.
http://blogs.digium.com/

................bill