When businessmen hear the term “open source” software, it often implies another meaning – "free" software. Although open source VoIP software is possible to download and use for free, it doesn’t mean that there won't be extra expenses for its support or updates. First thing you have to remember, is that once you choose an open source VoIP solution you save only on the software license but additional costs might arise unexpectedly.
Open source software is available for different updates and further developments without having a copy right for that. But you have to keep in mind that open source software is more suitable for enterprises with high-skilled tech staff, otherwise it will be unprofitable for a company, because tech engineers have to get huge experience not only in such software development, but in its support and maintenance .
When using open source software, you have a chance to ask for support only from Developer's Community, but using licensed software you'll get an opportunity to receive support directly from the vendor, support form a third party system's integrator and of course the help desk. Imagine that you are using open source software and a serious problem occures. What should you do? You have to struggle through thousands of other community members who also use open source software to get help. Don't you think it's not an effective way to reduce the expenses of your company?
So far, open source software has a range of advantages such as give-away copyright costs, low dependence of the vendor, simplicity in software installation, high level of security, but these are really small advantages when comparing to licensed software. Strong VoIP companies should take the following factors into consideration: packaged open source software is not free of charge (e.g. commercial versions of Unix-system), technical support also costs a fee, therewith you have to pay for consultations of course. Despite the fact that you can get the source code absolutely for free, you should keep in mind that your company have to pay for support and integration with other applications anyway.
One of the main reasons for choosing an open source VoIP solution over licensed software, is that companies want to get an access to the source code. But first of all, they have to adapt the code to their hardware and OS, add security items and some other settings i.e. customize it accordingly. The other problem is that the price for the basic support of an open source solution is 1500-2000 USD per month. Also, you should understand that you have to spend weeks for expensive trainings and learning the variety of technical documentation. You have to go through all of these to make such kind of open source software work correctly. So, the thought that you can get everything for free is not true.
In most cases, open source VoIP billing solutions use the term "open source" as a tag line to get the client's attention. Open source VoiP developments mean to entice clients away from competitors to sell their own systems. Some of the famous software vendors such as Switchvox, Pingtel, Woburn, Mass have affiliate programs for supporting an open source VoIP solutions, which were developed by them. Anyway, it's very important for every customer to get the whole package of services from a single vendor but not from different ones.
From the other side, some commercial VoIP solutions developers such as Jerasoft Development offers support packages which give you an ability to upgrade for free to the latest version of BillBery Billing and Management system, highest priority in tickets and live chat support, help in custom and XML-RPC API integrations with low prices as open source vendors. Their great solution improves service quality in VoIP business and will be helpful for the companies that have high level requirements for reliability and want to stay with latest releases all the time. Also, this package will be useful for companies that have custom integrations with their custom solutions, software or web-site, as JeraSoft provides consultations on API usage.