For those who have not heard yet my last day with Sangoma Technologies will be April 30th. It’s been a long journey for me. In Jan 2015 Luke Duquaine, Bryan Walters, Philippe Lindheimer and I sold our company Schmooze and the FreePBX project to Sangoma after being involved in FreePBX since 2007.
We all stayed on with the company the last 4 years but as those that know me best, know I like to do new things and shake things up a lot. I feel the time has come for me to move on to new things and spread my wings again and go do a new startup for the 5th time in my career. It’s scary to leave the comfort of what you know and go into the world of the unknown but also intriguing and fun and I can not wait to see what my future holds.
I have enjoyed my time at Sangoma and feel I contributed a lot and helped see the company and FreePBX through a major growth and refocus. When I joined Sangoma they were about 12M and are now on target to exceed over 100 Million in sales this year and it’s been a pleasure being the COO of such a fast growing company and I learned so much in my professional life. I am going to miss the people who I have become such close friends the most through Sangoma and this awesome community and I wish everyone at Sangoma and FreePBX the best.
I am going to try and start posting more on Twitter so please feel free to follow me tonyclewis on Twitter.
I must say, one of the things I miss about no longer being with Sangoma is working with you. You (and Philippe, Andrew, Bryan, Luke, and everyone else) took this little FreePBX thing that I had no time to work on all those years ago, and turned it into the worlds leading Open Source PBX.
We had a HUGE amount of fun, and I appreciate that immensely.
You were fundamental in turning FreePBX into a true business-class project with all the “Shine” and features of it’s competitors and more features than most of the commercial offerings.
Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them. I am not ready to talk about what’s next as I am head down the next 5 weeks getting things handed off to others but I will let people know in due time.
WOW…it wont be the same without you guiding the ship. You have brought innovation and commercial viability to this project and it has come so far from the early days and all its various forks which always seemed to land back at home in the end which speaks volumes to the way you made things work . You will be missed but, I hope we still see you in the community forums throwing out answers and comments now and then. With all you had on the plate it always amazed me how you still found time to stay present and current in the forums. Good luck and much success in wherever the future takes you. Please keep in touch and lets us know what the next adventure may be.
Im not long time user in this community, but when i frist started i have seen Tony Lewis COO of Sangoma in this forum, I said to my self this is a dedicated employee making time to respond to the users needs and helping them to resolve their issues.
Tony Lewis thank you for your time helping us, good luck in your new projects.
Thank you for the kind words and joining our community. I hope you fine it inviting and helpful and there are plenty of smart people here to assist you.
The community will certainly miss your presence. I know you’ve helped me countless times in your answers here on the forums, even for the threads I didn’t start.
I’m certain your intelligence and capability will do well wherever you end up.