Hud 3??? Where has it gone????

Personally I have just resigned myself to the fact it's not going to happen and moved on.

HUD3 -IS- coming out soon! We have a working version of it in our test environments now. But there is still a lot of bugfixing to go before it is ready for release for CE customers. Once all of the platform dependencies have been resolved, it will be released.

We also have a FreePBX module for HUD3 configuration finished already, and that will be released with HUD3 as well to make configuration simple.

Fonality is supposed to release HUD back to the community at large via a FreePBX module. So many rumors abound concerning the pricing model and other details I will wait and see.

We keep hearing promises yet as we are about to hit 1 year since the fork Fonality's total commitment to the code base is less than 1k of code. No Fonality engineer has commit access to the FreePBX or Asterisk SVN. I am not trying to stir up stuff, these are simply the facts.

Any updates on getting HUD working with 2.8?? Or what the road map for HUD actually is??

ASTassianant just doesn't cut it really.

Kevin

Kerry,

Thanks for the mention! You're right, iSymphony 2.1 BETA does work with trixbox 2.8. You can download it in the beta downloads section on our website:
http://www.i9technologies.com/component/option,com_docman/task,ca...

Please keep in mind that this is the most stable version yet and the BETA tag is just a formality. Please contact us if you have any questions or need assistance.

Regards,
Sean

Yes, it does make it a commercial product, but at the same time if they sell you HUD3 any cheaper than selling you trixbox Pro than there is no incentive to buy Pro is there? Why buy Pro when you can do the same thing with CE for less money? That isn't a good valuation play. If you are so willing to shell out money for HUD3, than why not shell out the money for Pro?

Note: I am not endorsing the statements I have just made, I am just playing Devil's Advocate to possibly explain Fonality's side of the thought process.

damn my typos! ;o)

Hi Kerry.
Thank you for your genuinely useful and considered response.
I don't know why you chaps hadn't just been as open and as honest as this in the first place, as you would have gotten answers to this problem years ago.

Anyhoo, the challenge of predicting your market has always one of the hardest things to do (you are not the first and you are not the last) and yet your ability to predict and asses your market completely dictates your success.

I would completely ignore the forum as a means of gauging interest etc. Forums are great for many reasons, from ranting, to open community development. However it is still a technical forum and it does not provide a true view of the market as the forum members are just people like, well us!
Not Director’s, not Managers or even End Users. Just the technical people who have been tasked with the challenge of implementing a telephony system.

Instead, a better way to gain a view of your potential market is maybe to look at your download figures. These have to be taken with consideration of course however as each download does not represent a running system.
You could probably make a fairly accurate guesstimate to say that between 25% and 40% of downloads end up as running systems. Although you will be better informed of this figure (which needs improving).

You chaps do boast hundreds of thousands of downloads each year. This is without doubt a great achievement and shows that the 'Trixbox' brand is partly established in the industry.

Another thing that needs to be considered is the fact that most of the people that arrive at the Trixbox sites got there because of their awareness of open source, and their need for an affordable telephony system. Those who can afford it will go pro (assuming they have good experiences in general with Fonaility), those that can't or who need an openly configurable system will use CE.

Both offerings however should allow people to implement a complete system. With CE this is not possible as the client side component simply does not exist. We will not go pro, so this leaves us with no choice but to leave Trixbox completely and go elsewhere!

Obviously to drop CE would be completely self destructive and counter intuitive.
Instead though, what has been happening for the past couple of years is that people are trying out CE, they are enjoying it and wanting to implement it only to find that they can't, or they have to deal with substandard third party equivalents.

This leads to a lack of trust in the Fonality brand in general. In our case for example, we have been willing to complain about the terrible business tactics of Fonaility because we have invested time and effort into our CE implementation.
Whilst we love the CE and Pro products we have no faith what so ever in Fonaility.

This again leads to people going elsewhere and Fonaility loosing even more business.

So, where do you stand now?
You are in the position where there is failing confidence in Fonaility, frustrated CE users and those who can afford Pro.

I.e. there is a great end product but no easy means for potential customers to discover it and gain confidence in the brand and the products before deciding to shell out for the turn key solution.

I.e. even if we had the money, we now wouldn't touch Pro with a barge pole as we have zero confidence in Fonaility's business acumen.

How do you fix this?
Well, first of all you at least need to get the confidence back in the community. To do that needs a version of HUD3 that runs on CE.
This in turn will start to repair people’s faith in Fonaility (I might add that rehiring Kerry has been encouraging) and most importantly will open up your entry paths for prospective customers (I.e. allow techies like us to play and gain product and company confidence to make a recommendation to their managers etc)..

The vast majority of the people (I would even say >90%) who arrive at the Trixbox sites are the techies who are doing research into a new telephony system.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment: They will have a few briefs but primarily; find the best reasonably priced open source PABX (forget about the all for free users) which is provided by the best company.

How do you score then? Well I have to say very badly!
You have two products, the entry ‘CE’ one is seemingly given no consideration what so ever (this shows poor to zero understanding of the higher initial investment required before return, which occurs in the open source world).
The ‘Pro’ one looks good but a new customer needs a LOT more convincing..
So they next look at the company only to see inconsistent decisions and lots of people complaining.

That is barely 1 out of 3! This of course means you will probably lose over half again of your new visitors before they have even started a download.

What is the cost of developing CEHUD3?
The underlying subsystem between the CE and Pro servers is not that different. They are just Linux and Asterisk with various custom additional components and apache web portal pages etc added by Fonaility to make configuration and maintenance smooth and seamless.

The techies that visit are not idiots and they know this.
They know full well that it does not require a completely different product to be written, but instead just requires a separate CVS branch for the CEHUD3 product and have fixes etc applied to each CVS branch.
If you are not doing this and it really does cost that much to modify a product slightly, then again that leaves concern to your working practices (I work for a software house).

Hence when a company just gives out lots of excuses and frankly, lies, those techies will just walk away without a second glance.

Of course there is a certain amount of development work required, and the costs of this development work do have to come from somewhere and will go unrewarded at first. In fact it will take a year or two for your end sales to pick up.
However this initial investment will fix your entry paths for new users and the end result will drive sales well above any initial investment.

To consider the development costs based on sales just to the existing community only demonstrates that your business ventures are all short term.
To be a viable business and to continue to grow, Fonaility needs to start implementing medium and long term ventures. The development of CEHUD3 to create a smooth entry path to Pro is a perfect example of a mid-term venture.

So to summarise my rather long winded response..
CEHUD3 is never going to make you money directly, instead CEHUD3 is a desperately needed long term venture to provide your prospective users with an access path to your commercial products, ultimately generating a lot more sales than you are getting at the moment..

Anyway, to be fair. We ourselves have got to the point where we are thinking of leaving if CEHUD3 does not arrive. My managers have given me 6 months. No CEHUD3 we leave Fonaility.

Ah, my mistake. When I saw kerry's return to this forum I figured they offered him his job back.

Quote: "HUD3 was supposed to be distributed as a FreePBX module. That would open it up to PBX in Flash, Elastix, Asterisknow et al. I feel that the market is sufficient to support the development and maintenance of the product. Unfortunately we may never know."

I forgot about this. This is a good point.
This would make Fonality a FORTUNE by having HUD3 accessible to all Asterisk users as well as providing an entry path for new TrixBox adopters, and licensing it on a per seat basis.
So again, I remain even more confused by Fonaility actions.

It is a real shame that such a great product is so poorly managed by Fonality.

AST is OK and does have a few good bespoke features. I actually helped Scott test and develop versions 1.1 through 1.2.1.6. It works and I am using it on my workstation right now.
However (Scott I am sorry to say this) AST it is just a bedroom quality product, and we need a high quality desktop product which we can buy supoprt for. Whilst I can get it to run stable on most machines, even after working with Scott for over a year, there still isn't a version that is stable on all machines which runs without kicking up its legs every day or so.
If you want to run AST with Outlook when outlook has lots of contacts, many with long names, forget it.

So why not just bring out HUD3 for CE???
I still haven't heard a decent reason yet.

Thanks for your time guys.
Cheers, A.

Fonality is being foolish here.

Since their CE product in Trixbox is just like Elastix and other products, crippling their CE product isn't feasable. IF they want their PRO package to be worth more and attractive, then make it BETTER by adding features.

If they want to generate revenue, sell some items like HUD3 "A-la-carte" like people are asking, and make the pricing reasonable. Then, put it in your PRO product, but make it attractive to buy PRO versus just HUD.... IE, if you need a lot of HUD licenses, if you go PRO, you would get more cheaper in bulk, etc etc.

Fonality won't be around long, I can already tell by their logic.

You're missing the point -

You stated above in your logic that Fonality's Pro product is doing as well as they expected because the open source community (paraphrasing) isn't cash-laden or willing to spend money on products and prefers to use the free open source solutions, etc.

True, but it's also true that the CE version does what most geeks want it to, and they don't need the auto-setup style of PRO, true also?

So herein lies the issue - you can improve PRO or you can devalue CE.

Ok, if you devalue CE, it's now weaker than other similar free products out there, and you just lost the exposure that CE did give you, and PRO will get ignored therein.... "Bad CE? The PRO must be bad too..." That logic will be used by many, regardless if true. It's all about perception.

Ok, so you can't weaken CE, then enhance PRO.

My point? Offer stuff Al-La-Carte (HUD3) to get extra cash flow, and enhance PRO and give people a reason to WANT to pony up and get it, without crippling stuff below it. Learn the concept of "value add" versus "restrict and deny".

Ok I need to chime in here as I have been around awhile.

I am by no means a Fonality apologist (and not even Kerry's buddy since I have been in LA 3 times and he turned down all three dinner invitations!)

Anyway back on point. In my opinion Fonality's only mistake was promising HUD in the first place. They would be nuts to let it loose. Kerry is so completely spot on. It would cost Fonality untold sales of Pro and Xtra.

If there was such a huge market for the product iSyphony would be flying off the shelf.

FOP2 is a damn interesting product also, why don't we see how many have been sold at $50.00 ???

What is even worse is with a little work FOP1 can be customized to a small window. I have seen 2 threads in almost three years of users that have even bothered to look at the instructions for FOP1.

All day long I try and coach the wannabe consultants on this forum that complain their customers don't want to spend money for this and that. My answer is all the same, get better customers. Fonality's first responsibility is to the shareholders and they price the product for the position they want it to occupy?

I work for a company that has 2 locations and I think I may be more typical of the type of customer that would buy PRO.

My company is an SMB that requires 24x7 availability of there phone system and does not have the budget to pay for a full time telephony specialist. The value of going Pro in my case is that we get the 24x7 coverage with an extremely easy to use web interface that makes life very easy for me and my team. If we were to try to switch to CE (or gone originally with CE) I would have a revolt on my hands.

Saying that, I do use CE at home and I use it as a hobby. I am not a Linux guru, but I feel that I'm technically savvy to the point where I can tackle an open source phone system with the help of the community, which I feel is what's great about CE.

I personally would love to see HUD3 on CE, as I have experience with it at work and I know how great it is. Why Fonality can't get someone to port the basic functionality, just like they had with HUDlite is beyond me. But I'd venture to say that it's a result of their efforts on the Pro version is taking them longer than expected (I know, since I've been waiting for months already for them to get the next update to HUD and the pbx core out).

Saying all that, I do see how companies would be trying to save money and not want to pay for anything. But for that, why wouldn't another open source product be good? Why does Fonality have to supply the community with ALL their code? If there's another product out there that can do the job, but needs work, then the community should do its magic and make it a superb product. The community has produced amazing things and I think that if we put our collective heads to perfecting iSymphony or ASTassistant to be a product that suits us all.

I'd like to end off and say, that I've tried a few PBXs for my home, and the one that I felt was the best fit for me was TrixboxCE and I would think that there are many others like me out there. Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't pay for a HUD3 license for me, but then again I would want just what I got from HUDlite.

Hudlite was nice while it was available but I certainly never used it as a selling point. The big thing I've found that would make me want to sell HUD to a customer (in my case one download of CE usually means multiple systems being installed) is the Outlook integration that i assume is still there.

I've looked at Isymphony and tried to sell it but its lack of Outlook integration is a problem as soon as you mention computer telephony integration people want to dial from their bloody outlook contacts.

I actually think Isymphony is better and last I looked only Isymphony and FOP actually work across multiple asterisk instances so you can see who is available in a remote office in one place.

The only reason I avoid Trixbox Pro is the semi hosted model. Unlike other places of which the US is one where there is plenty of cheap bandwidth to be had it is hard enough to get sufficient upload bandwidth here to support the calls without having a phone system that needs to report to big brother.

If HUD3 is the point of difference and therefore the product then just sell the damn thing unless it's not good enough to stand on its own.

There is lots of contribution to the open source projects that ultimately make up Trixbox it's just that Fonality who packaged things up and made many projects one easy install (Centos, Asterisk, Dahdi, FreePBX) maybe aren't seeing as much as they would like.

Contributions come in other forms too not just code. Support being just one. A task that is mostly borne by the noble few around here of which I am NOT claiming to be one.

bkolodny, what would you like to see in iSymphony in order to help perfect it? We're always accepting user input in our development efforts and would love more.

Kbedford, we are working on Outlook integration. We'll keep the community updated on this feature.

Thanks,
Sean

jknudsen, you might be interested in our latest beta (due to be marked stable very soon). With the new list view you're able to re-arrange the columns and hide the columns you don't need. As I stated in my previous post Outlook integration is slated soon. I'll keep everyone posted as soon as a beta becomes available with those additions. Please don't hesitate to call us if you need assistance with the latest beta or if you have any questions.

Like a lot of people, I've been observing the HUD3 threads since they started. I'm not whining every 2 seconds about it not being here yet as there are other people mentioning it.
The lack of HUD has been a very large part in me looking at every other Asterisk I can find to see if there is anyone there with anything even close. I also looked at Astassistant and iSymphony, but the interface of either is nothing close to the clean friendliness of HUD. The 2 reasons I can think of to not go to 2.8 is that there is no HUD, and Scott said not to.
I have never got past downloading Pro. Never installed or used it. Based in the feature list on the site for Standard, the lack of outlook integration, paging, or uploadable voice prompts makes it nothing of value to me. Enterprise Edition is the first one even remotely interesting, as Standard is not a starter.
A web site that tells me to call my reseller for pricing is a website that is not an effective tool. It just pisses me off. Fonality should change that.
The 888voipstore gives me some pricing. That's a bonus.
If I had a choice of using uncrippled CE with iSymphony, that lets me use my own prompts and have paging, for less than Enterprise costs, then that would be hard to pass over. In that context, it wouldn't really matter if I was using another distro. The HUD is a very large part of why I use Trixbox.
If I could get HUD that is updated and worked on 2.8, that would be even better. It's so pretty.

So to reiterate the point Kerry has been making - Apparently there is a low demand for HUD3. I don't believe that for a second. I believe the world is filled with people like me who are grateful for the code they download, and can see that some of the more A type personalities here are keeping the thread alive.
Promises about a HUD CE version were made. If these promises are to be retracted, could they hurry up and retract them. Then at least people who are waiting to decide if they should go to Pro or iSymphony or something else can get some closure and move on.

If the product is to ever eventuate, it would be nice to see some mention about that also.

Andrew

If HUD3 where available for purchase with CE (preferably generic FreePBX and Asterisk) I would revisit my model.

If Fonality continues to move this slow I would imagine that the iSymphony guys will make a low impact mode for individual users. Each release has more and more customization. This would make HUD 3 a moot point.

If your looking for a +1, count me in for HUD3.

+1 Here! 50+ Licenses if that is what it takes.

They will not do HUD2 for CE, that code was developed for Asterisk 1.0.9 and is buggy as all hell and doesnt work at all with Asterisk 1.6. That is the issue right now. There is no point in rewriting HUD2 for Asterisk 1.6 when that work is already done with HUD3. Its just a matter of taking the resources from the HUD3 development team that are currently working on some more improvements and features for PBXtra/TBPro and redirecting them for a while to wrap up integration/testing with CE.

Not sure what you mean about HUD3 not being able to disable call recording though. You can even do that in HUDLite, its just global, its either on or off for everyone.

Can't wait, looking to buy 150 licenses...

Solve that easily by putting in the employee handbook that your calls may be recorded. Almost every company I have ever worked for has had that even the ones that didnt have the ability to do it. It was just a cover-our-ass in case they ever needed to down the road.

I never comment on anything but I guess there is a first for everything.... so here we go.

I completely agree with Kerry. HUD3 is the value-add for TB Pro - selling that product as a separate add-on for CE would cannibalize TB Pro sales. Since end-users only know what's facing them (their desk/SIP phone and HUD 3) I could see TB Pro resellers starting to sell CE boxes with HUD 3 because the end-user would never know the difference if the features they needed could be implemented on CE. Yes it might be more of a setup for the reseller, but by paying $0.00 for CE (and only having to pay for HUD) the reseller can either undercut the competition and/or make a higher margin for himself.

I also agree however, that we never should of heard a peep about HUD3 until a beta was released. We should have been told that HUD3 is a feature of TB Pro and will there are currently no plans to release a version for CE. Period. If they surprise us later with a beta on CE then great (I'm certain that there will be some people that bought Pro just for HUD that feel a little betrayed but those would likely number fewer than those of us outraged now).

I will be the first to admit I use Trixbox CE because it's free. I have a very small business with three extensions I run out of my house and I simply don't care enough to pay for a fully featured phone system right now. Additionally we use ASTassistant and are happy with it because it meets our basic, limited needs. So at first blush I'm not an important customer to Fonality - but that's where they'd be wrong.

Although small, we are growing. My reason for implementing CE for ourselves initially was because I wanted to get first hand experience with Asterisk/VoIP phone systems because we were (still are) planning on diversifying our offerings and enter the telephony space. Basically getting my feet wet before starting some serious training, etc. After feeling some confidence with the basics I'd start doing additional training, partner with some trunk providers (our Speakeasy training in upcoming in a few weeks) and eventually partner with a phone system vendor to complete the offering. Being that my experience thus far was with CE my intent was to partner with Fonality to resell PBXtra/TB Pro.

To be honest, I never looked into becoming a partner. I sat back and watched as HUD3 (which I still believe is the main value-add for TB Pro / PBXtra) release dates slipped. Then slipped again. Then again. Then it looked like they were going to finally release a product and they started pimping http://www.gimmehudnow.org as the place to go to get updates about HUD 3. I signed up for the updates and to this day, have never received a thing. This most recent update on this website? The original announcement from over a year ago. Never touched again.

I eventually decided not to look into partnering with Fonality. Establishing a partnership with a vendor puts part of your reputation in their hands and I don't trust Fonality with that stewardship. From where I stand they appear to over promise and under deliver and as such cannot be trusted. Maybe things as different on the business side of the house and I'm totally wrong about Fonality. If that's the case then they are severely mismanaging their opportunity with CE. The one and only true benefit they get from CE is free advertising (more to future partners like us than end users that just use CE for its price tag). They may not be getting the conversions they were hoping for, but as long as they are putting out CE they need to do it in a way that benefits Fonality's image, not harms it. That's not accomplished through adding additional features as much as it is through getting to showcase the professionalism of the company behind it using good (reliable) communication and regular timely releases (even if it's only every 12+ months as long as it's predictable).

But I digress... As I said before maybe things as different on the business side of the house and I'm totally wrong about Fonality. If that's the case I welcome Fonality to help me change my mind. Until then however we're back to why I never comment on anything. You have to still care about a company to comment on their practices. I no longer care - for the moment Fonality is dead to me.