Asterisk going mainstream?
I was a little late on blogging Digium’s Switchvox acquisition, but there isn’t much to tell about either. It’s a move that was (over)due, seeing that Digium’s main revenue comes from selling PCI cards and maybe the Asterisk business edition. Other vendors such as Fonality are making big profits of Digium’s work and Digium is getting none of it. Sure Digium has AsteriskNOW, but face it, that’s a joke and there are far better interfaces out there.
What is far more interesting however, is 3Com’s recent announcement that it would launch three new VoIP systems for the SMB market. Two of these systems are based on 3Com’s own VCX lineup which seems to me like it was the last SMB solution to switch from H323 to SIP. The third system however, is based on Digium’s Asterisk Appliance. Well actually it is Digium’s Asterisk Appliance, but through an OEM deal it will be called 3Com Asterisk Appliance.
This is a very significant development for Digium and open source software in general. Of course established vendors using open source software in itself is nothing new. In this case 3Com is actually paying Digium to use the software. Though I would have preferred to see that 3Com actually did more development on the product, instead of just reselling the Asterisk Appliance it’s definitely a good start.
