Jim Van Meggelen has been working with PBXs since 1990.

He is one of the authors of O’Reilly’s Asterisk (News - Alert): The Future of Telephony.

 

Jim maintains a blog at http://www.coretel.ca/jb/.

 

Jim will present a session at the upcoming AstriCon in Glendale, AZ entitled Intro to Unified Communications (News - Alert): The Real Fun Has Barely Begun.

 

I try to keep these introductions more low key, but I was absolutely taken by Jim’s bio on the Astricon site. There, it says that he “…is probably a bit of a masochist, which would explain why he got into the telecom business in the first place, and why he now loves Asterisk. Jim is pretty friendly, kinda like a puppy that gets your shoes dirty. His enthusiasm is infectious, but also a little bit frightening if you stand too close.”

 

Anybody who in any way, shape, or form resembles a masochistic puppy probably possesses good presentation skills, and is someone whose session you wouldn’t want to miss. Incidentally the session takes place at 11:00am on Wednesday September 24.

 

Here are Jim’s responses to some questions I tossed his way regarding his session at Astricon and CoreTel’s place in the open source community.

 

 

JVM: I have been asked to talk about Unified Communications. This is a topic that has been of interest to the telecom industry since before the computer age. It is not a new concept, but new philosophies about the development of technology herald the possibility of achieving something that has thus far eluded us. I will talk a bit about the history of this concept, the current state of technologies in this space, and offer my opinions on the future.

 

JVM: We provide organizations with both consulting and product-based services. We have based our current products on Asterisk, but we select technology based on how well it will serve our customers. We are open-minded, but have a strong preference for open-source software. We are very customer-centric; our core values speak to that. Our goal is to provide a level of service such that every one of our customers is willing to be a reference. Open Source products help us deliver on this goal and help us to solve the communications challenges our customers bring to us.

 

JVM: The solution team is critical. Open source software can be a disaster if it is not designed, managed, implemented and supported correctly. Research your solution provider carefully, plan meticulously, and your open source project can be a great experience and a rewarding investment. Do not buy open source based on price; the cheapest solution on paper may prove painfully expensive to your business.

 

JVM: Asterisk-based solutions are more flexible in delivering features and benefits, and provide a platform that can enable superior communications in a far more cost effective manner than proprietary systems.

 

JVM: Lately I have been seeing some telecom heavyweights take an interest in open source telecom. Given that the market share for open source telecom is barely a thin line on the pie chart that represents the telecom industry as a whole, I am hopeful this interest is going to stimulate a new surge of innovation, as well as more support for the concepts of interoperability and commoditization, both things incumbent industries have traditionally had a hard time with.

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