And so I give you

According to Wikipedia a meeting is the act where "two or more people come together, in particular to have discussions, often in a formalized way"; but it also states that in the modern era of business, organizations are realizing, more often than not, that "meetings are an important vehicle for human communication"; yet, this concept is so common and pervasive in organizations that many take them for granted and forget that, unless properly planned and executed, meetings can be a terrible waste of precious resources.

So what's the whole point of this previous paragraph? Besides of showing off that I also read my Wikipedia (=P), I thought it would be an appropriate introduction for this new blog, if you want to know the "why", just keep reading I'm going to it right now.

I work in an IT Consulting company from Venezuela, where we do mostly OpenSource Consulting; we're famous for taking diverse OpenSource tools and integrate them in a tight and secure way, that still hold the strength and reliability necessary to provide our clients, that vary from SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) to large companies of transnational value, with the right solutions for their needs. Those OpenSource "integrated packages" are called the Open Brands and I'm one of the brawns behind the brains in them (=P).

As of late we've detected an urge in the market, a growing necessity that few have recognized, at least in our target of competition, and that urge is none other than the necessity of constant communication inside organizations of any scale in order to succeed. Most of our brands are made to deal with those problems, by giving you a safe connection to the Web or allowing you to secure your data in safety for later use or by contacting over an instant messaging service, it’s always about communication.

We've always dealt with these necessity in the assumption of a computer user; but now the necessity goes further, what about those people who don't have a computer for everyone and still need safe and sound communication? The obvious answer, to me at least, is Voice over IP (VoIP). So my task has become the following: within the next six weeks i must create an OpenBrand with this purpose, entrust the work over an OpenSource PBX and take the communications to our every client, even to those who wont spend a bill over the cost of a computer (personally i just think they're dumb). So this blog is meant to be my form of expression over my work, a venting out and sort of a rant over this labor. Taking as a reference that I don’t know anything about telecommunications (I’m a database expert), telephony or VoIP for all that matter; I will bitch a lot.

So my task begins at selecting the correct OpenSource package to work with, and my considerations are:

Asterisk (link), which is one of the most famous PBX in the OpenSource little world.
SIPX (that's what i'm talking about), a very neat PBX software which is LGPL and very frikkin’ powerful.
OpenSER (feels clicky), don’t know much about it just that it’s supposed to work as an SIP router (I need to check further).
GNUGK (follow me), not really a PBX per se, it’s a gatekeeper for the H.323 protocol, not the greatest sailor in the boat, but it could work as an standalone server or integrated with other of the PBXes.
And last but not least Asterisk@Home (hell yeah), technically this is just Asterisk with a whole effin lot of features, looks very kinky and easy to work with, I’m looking forward to testingt it.

Alas, I'm also looking forward to creep the hell out of my bosses if they happen to spot this blog.