Joshua Penix wrote: > On Jun 27, 2008, at 6:31 PM, DJA wrote: > >> The existing office currently has 4 XP Home workstations, which will >> need to be upgraded to XP Pro (if available) in order to attach to the >> MS Domain Server, and one Mac running OS X (can OS X now write NTFS?). > > OS X cannot natively write NTFS (though it can with FUSE, just like > Linux), but that's not an issue if you're connecting to a file server. > OS X talks SMB just fine. > >> I'd like to steer him towards a more cost-effective FOSS solution if >> one exists. Obviously, the hardware costs are going to be about the >> same regardless of the software chosen. He has no IT staff (other than >> me once in a while for the usual issues), and I don't know what kind >> of admin is required by the MS server. And there is no included >> out-of-warranty service contract with the quoted package (which >> appears to be lease-to-own). > > First, upon reading the OpenServer website, it appears the "Standard > Edition" of the product is intended to integrate with an existing PBX > and assumes the customer has one. If this guy is starting from scratch, > you may need to look at the SIP edition. > > That said, this is just a "Unified Communications" server which is a > fancy way of saying VoIP phones, voicemail and fax that integrates with > your email (and maybe instant messaging and things like website > live-chat or "call me now" buttons). More generally, it's just > technology taking advantage of what happens when suddenly the telephone > system is digital, thanks to VoIP. > > And yes, of course FOSS has something to offer. As Tracy said, Asterisk > is generally the go-to answer. But Asterisk is really more of a > toolkit... you're not going to 'yum install' it and suddenly have it > doing everything above. The software cost is zero, but you're going to > spend a good amount of time configuring it to do what you want. > > That may not be a bad option, but there are other alternatives. One > would be to consider one of the Switchvox (http://www.switchvox.com/) > solutions, which are appliances based on Asterisk and tied in with some > online support. The other would be to give up the idea of hosting VoIP > internally at all and instead outsource the 5 lines to an ISP like > Speakeasy (http://www.speakeasy.net/promos/phoneservice/) or Covad > (http://www.covad.com/services/voip/index.html). >
Consider bringing in special consulting help? There are at least a couple of potential authorities here (not me!). Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
