In huge news for the VoIP world (and the open-source Asterisk project underlying Fonality), Fonality has entered into a partnership with Dell to take easy-to-use, affordable VoIP phone systems to the SMB (small-to-medium sized business) under a brand name Dell is calling the “Fonality VoIP Phone System.” Dell will be selling it through its global SMB sales organization, as well as its channel.
Needless to say, the opportunity is huge. According to the Dell’Oro Group [PDF], 35 million small businesses worldwide are expected to adopt VoIP calling over the next three years. Fonality brings to the table an easy-to-use, directly installable product. Dell brings its market reach and brand. It’s a good deal for Dell. It could be the making of Fonality.
Again, look at the math:
An IDC analysis pegs Dell at more than 28% market share in the United States SMB market, or roughly seven million of the US’ 25 million SMBs. This deal immediately helps to put Fonality in front of Dell’s SMB customer base, as well as new accounts into which it’s selling.
That’s huge.
Dell didn’t choose Fonality because it’s built on open source, however, as Chris Lyman, Fonality’s CEO, notes on his blog. Rather, Dell was looking for three things. The product:
- Must be high in value
- Must be super easy to use
- Must run on Dell
The other big reason Chris cites for Dell’s choice of Fonality is its hybrid-hosted model. Regardless of the reason, it’s a huge coup for Fonality. Kudos!
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
The high margin business of Avaya, NEC, Nortel etc are going to take some serious beatings from this development.
It took a lot longer than I have been predicting/consulting on behalf of some of these legacy hardware providers but it’s happened. May you live in interesting times as they say.
1 comment though;
BTW I’ve already taken some calls about this article (I emailed it to a few friends/clients directly who wanted more detailed thoughts).
I need to explain - i think this is a good thing for Asterisk and the industry (although the Fonality distributed architecture in it’s current form is a very bad thing….but I’m on record for saying this in multiple forums).
Why I think this is a good thing for Asterisk is that Dell have massive potential to raise the profile of Asterisk ‘the technology’, also as a ‘fulfillment’ company there aren’t many better than Dell so this may be an opportunity for other companies to partner with Dell but loading their own iso’s on the boxes.
Regards,
Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net