Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Seriously, why can’t we get a great solution to handle business calls? (aircall.io)
11 points by olivierpailhes on Feb 28, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 12 comments



I found the writing nearly incomprehensible, and the admission of not knowing what PBX meant, and bragging that they didn't care, was not reassuring. Even if you agree with the concept that email addresses are easier to get right than phone numbers (and that obfuscation of identity is not important), that is all interface issue. You are still going to need PBX to get it to work in an office.


I was thinking throughout the whole thing that it was written by someone whose first language is definitely not English. Beyond that, it was poorly proof-read, poorly laid-out and not coherent.


yeah, if you are starting a business that targets enterprise, you need to get a native English speaker writing things for you.


What is a "business" call? I didn't see a definition.

"Just make and receive business calls. As easily as email."

Umm.... Most people I know are horrible at email. If I email 4 people and ask a group question, 90% of the time one of them replies only to me with info for the group. Or the reverse, sends a reply intended for me to the whole group, sometimes with embarrassing results.

"easily as email" is not a good bar to set.


Btw, you can use frontapp.com for email!


Package up voip.ms or anveo on the backend in a nice UI, and provide a reliable SIP app (e.g. sipdroid), and you basically have what you guys are going for. If you focus on polish you can probably charge a premium, as right now there's still a high tech factor involved in setting such a system up.


I see a lot of evidence on the website of a company that doesn't understand how to communicate.


Business calls are one of those things that any engineer doesn't want to be involved in. Thus, there's no passion behind the projects that exist :-)


Hi I'm the author of the post. You've guessed right - I'm not a native english [I had the post proof-read though by a "native" (he said) so I've got some follow-up to do], but a humble members of the French Tech. We'll try to work on our language skills asap!

Beyond this I truly appreciate your feedback [and of course we all know at Aircall what is a PBX and how to make one quickly in the garage :-)].


You don't need to brush up on your English skills if you hire me, I'm a freelancer specializing in polishing up non-native English speaking companies' website and promotional copy when they're expanding into English-speaking markets.

From my website (which I won't post here out of integrity, despite the sales pitch): "I comb all English language copy on your website, printed advertising , billboards, even television and radio spots, before going to press.

I produce a report that identifies and corrects all spelling, grammatical, and phrasing/punctuation errors that may have been missed during the initial translation to English.

My background is in both formal and conversational English, with a long history of writing both fiction and academic pieces. I am able to work with clients to modify the tone and context of wording in your message, to better match the original meaning and intent."

PM me if you want to discuss. Cheers!


I rolled my own PBX with Twilio, but I probably would have given this a shot if it had been available (depending on pricing). The partial screenshot of the interface looks nice. As others have commented, though, the blog post does you a significant disservice. Would you do business with a hosting provider that said, "We don't know what 'DNS' is (and don't wanna know)"?


I would add:

6. Instant access to conference lines for multiple people to join at once.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: