Quote from: QBZappy on June 07, 2012, 10:55:25 AM
lhm.,
It's funny that you posted this in the "Feature Requests" sub-forum.
In defense of the OBihai people, in the past, I may have considered them cheap, however they have always been honorable and professional. In fact in the past it sometimes seemed in the manner of their replies that these people were secretly the "Borg" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29 ). This is what I suspect may happen when you are "assimilated" as a software engineer.
I think I would not jump to that conclusion just yet. I cann't help but think that some lessons were learned. I know that they are currently making an effort to acknowldge and reward contributors on this forum. It would be too self serving for them to mention it on their part. I sense this is another milestone in their growth, considering the new product line launch, and the OBiPLUS waiting in the pipeline.
I challenge anyone here to find a company that has supported a product better than them. With the absense of a resident "dialplan guru" in this forum or the participation of OBihai employees, it is obvious that the appeal of the product has diminished in the eyes of the potential consumer. This is a challenge that the OBihai management has to figure out. Who said being in business was easy. The ball is in their court.
The idea of assimilation popped up in my mind as well, however I consider it less probable. The level of hostility between Obihai and Ron was way too high to allow a 180 degree turn at warp speed( to stay with Starship
) and the only reason to do that would have been Obihai's fear of Ron's knowledge which he could use somewhere else either to tear down the product or to provide valuable help to competition.
I agree with the notion that Obihai provides a great support for the product, however this support is largely limited to problems/malfunctions of the product. Obihai does not do much for a customer who has a properly working unit but is not able to figure out the complexities of the configuration.
As long as you stay with with their pre configured stuff you are fine. An average user will be able to set up his Google voice calling within 5 minutes. And it took me less than 3 minutes to set up my Callcentric calling with the most basic digitmap. Unfortunately, once you go outside what they pre configured or want to have a SIP provider they did not hand pick ( like Localphone, probably the most valuable SIP provider available) you are in trouble. Their manual must be a challenge even for an IT engineer.
I agree with you, the ball is now on their side. And they better do something because things change fast in the VOIP world.
