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Design a Virtual Office with Open Source?

Posted by Cliff on from the how-would-you-do-it dept.

apropos asks: "An interesting question came up recently when discussing (yet again) starting an open-source based consulting company: 'How would you design the ultimate virtual office with open source software?' With things like fax, VoIP, web, email, security and office suites all available as open source products, what kind of useful things could be done? One idea that came to mind was emailing answering machine recordings. What would you put into your ultimate virtual office solution?"

3 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. What about Asterisk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can use Asterisk for your PBX.

    1. Re:What about Asterisk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Uhh you don't need any extra hardware over what you would need for an *H323 solution. You can use software-based phones if you have nothing else. You can get a SIP phone for $65 if you are on a serious budget and want the feel of a phone in your hand when you talk. You'll never find a phone that is compatible with *H323 for that low.

      I have less than $300 and have three internal extensions and one external line. A comparable pbx would be much more expensive and MUCH less flexible. I've been able to do with Asterisk in about 30 minutes what would have taken months of C programming on any decent PBX (and a $10k developer license).

  2. email voice messages - linux by 4pksings · · Score: 5, Informative

    VOCP does this. Multiple mailboxes, faxes, faxback,
    downloads messages via the web so that they can be played anywhere. Uses perl and python.

    Works very well, I have used it for over 3 years.

    And of course, it's GPL licensed, and downloadable at vocp.sourceforge.net.

    PK