Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Office of the Future

Its been a while since I looked at the business office of the next decade and what technological advancements will move companies forward. As a disruptor to the IP PBX and telephony market, Asterisk plays a role in this change. So do many other disruptors: iPhone, Android, Blackberry and maybe the new tablet computing modules.

What's unique these days is the increasing acceptance by a larger contingent of adopters of the new technology. This proves once again convenience wins over price or perfection. We know version 1.0 of anything has challenges. We know there are bugs in the software. We know budgets are being reduced.

Based on these data points, open source business phone system + mobile phone = new remote office. Its cheap, it's powerful, it works!

Now, that scratches the surface. Here are some other questions:

1. Will we use desk phones in 5 years?
2. Will we all use just a softphone or Skype for Business client software in 5 years?
3. Will we just use our cell phone which will essentially be a small PC or MAC clone with wireless network connecting to virtually anything and everything?
4. Will iPhone and Android "type" phones be our choice?
5. How will we buy our business phone system and cell phones? Web? Retailer? Vendor?
6. Will we have separate business and personal phones and/or computers?
7. In 2000-2002 during the meltdown, we had a huge increase in small business startups of 1 and 2 persons. How will 2009-2010 be in the face of today's economic times? Similar? Different?
8. Will Cisco be around as we know them or will they become different again?
9. Will Asterisk be ubiquitous enough to displace all traditional telephones as we know them today?

In general we think about these questions daily. Open Source developers subscribe to the notion of all choices being open source. Do you?

Saturday, September 20, 2008

New Name....Almost

Tonight I have added, "The Open Disruptor" to the front of "A Day in the Life of Digium!"

As I said before, I will add to the mix on this blog: (1) open source elements, (2) disruptive technologies, and (3) IP Telephony.

Watch here. Several items came out of IT Expo this past week and I will address log!

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Don't ya hate it when.........

I wrote a short tweet on Twitter, that started like this title, and decided it would be fun to create my top 10 list from the past two years at Digium of "Don't ya hate it when........." new generation we-related events. Lets take a quick look. What are your favorite "Don't ya hate it when.........events!"

Don't ya hate it when.........

10. ....the phone rings Friday afternoons at 4:30 PM and your co-worker has a problem that must be addressed immediately before the end of the day!

9. ....you spill coffee or tea on your clean shirt or blouse in a business meeting

8. ....you select reply all when you did not mean to

7. ....you select "delete", the response is slow, so you select "delete" over and over.....then each stroke deletes one message only to not be able to recover the deleted by mistake messages....oops!

6. ....you forget the receipt on a business trip and either the client or your boss requires receipts!

5. ....Google Customer Service does not return your call when you "have to contact them" about a serious Adword problem

4. ....you hit send before running spell-check

3. ....the "press" get the story twisted

2. ....your flight is canceled

1. ....the bird of paradise writes an incorrect flag in your payroll record