You're correct -- I believe I pointed out in my original post that there is a $200+ difference between a cordless Cisco with/without software. And that's plain ridiculous. Plus, the phone alone isn't worth $500 in hardware -- so we're obviously dealing with GREED here.
My knee-jerk response to such business tactics always has been to do it better and cheaper. Six years ago, I was talking to IT personel in industry "X". There were two established mainframe solutions in that industry serving 80% of the market, costing $50K-$75K start-up cost per location, plus $1K+ per seat. Never mind the $10K-$15K monthly "maintenance" cost. Never mind that everyone had to be able to work a terminal with a lovely amber on black, text-based "GUI". In response, we set out to write a better application, using a relational DB, Windows GUI, etc. We now have installed over 600 locations nationwide (capturing almost 16% market share), offering a much better solution at a lower cost. Our company employs some 20 programmers, 40 support and 20 training staff, and we're greatly profitable. Cisco would be smart to drop the prices of their phones to realistic levels -- if their phones cost $200 instead of $400, they would probably only make $100/phone, but they'd sell disproportionally more phones to balance this out. On the other hand, they'd really P.O. their current customers who paid their inflated prices. Sucks to be them. So, reading all the great feedback on this, what if we took an open-source SIP phone (Siphon, KPhone), figure out the least amount of hardware to run it, configure a PC104 or other SBC prototype and then show it to investors. Heck, I think I may just try this out sometime... $400 buys me a 5.25" sized miniboard with Dual-Lan, onboard Audio, usb, serial, CF port (for disk-on-chip), etc. Another $100 gets me a serial LCD, and for $2.50 I can pick up parts to adapt a telephone handset to the sound-card's impedance. It would seem that this is the complete deal. Part cost for prototype: Less than $1K. Software is GPL'd. Then I'd have an actual prototype to show the banks and pass off to product engineering team. Software can remain open source, and the hardware is nothing more than a very specialized PC with built-in UA and handset. BTW, where can you get the Grandstream for $50? That's a decent alternative to having Sipuras and analog phones everywhere in this house. -----Original Message----- From: Lars Boegild Thomsen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Cost of IP Phones, or Isn't It Just Software? Hi > Just to get an idea of hardware cost involved here: > - I can buy a 4-port router with built-in firewall, web-server and > email-client for $20-$30 RETAIL. That would indicate a hardware cost > of $10 max. > - I can purchase a Sipura SPA-2000 for $100 -- actual hardware cost > should be $50-$75. > - I can also purchase a fully featured ADSI speakerphone for $80 > retail, with an expected hardware cost of $50-$60. But you fail to discuss the most important fact. Cisco charge USD 500 for a phone simply because they can do so :) If you look at the general pricing - go back 2 years and you could hardly find a VoIP phone for less than USD 250. Enter Grandstream and prices started dropping. When Grandstream first appeared they listed the price as USD 79. Now they are generally selling at around USD 50-60 or so (single pcs. end user pricing. It's now possible to get a lot of IP phones for less than USD 100 - which is about the price that I and most people find reasonable to pay for them. You see the same with the WiFi phones right now. The first Cisco one was what - 6-700 USD (I never even bothered to check the exact price). The second one - the ZyXEL/Pulver thingy - well - they generally seem to sell now at around USD 200 or so. The Senao one is going to hit the market in a few month and they claim to target around USD 120 for the initial offering. I'll bet you anything that shortly after the ZyXEL's will be around USD 100 and they'll both end up competing around that level. Anyway - I'm babbling now :) My point was only that the price of these gadgets have next to nothing to do with the actual hardware cost - but is only controlled by what the market is prepared to pay. Regards, Lars... _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
