Category: Asterisk
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Sangoma acquires Paraxip… open source-focused hardware meets enterprise software
Continue Reading: Sangoma acquires Paraxip… open source-focused hardware meets enterprise softwareEarlier this week there was the announcement that Sangoma was acquiring Montreal-based startup Paraxip for $4.8 million which was interesting to me on a couple of levels. First, I’ve known David Mandelstam from Sangoma for now around 8 years since way back when I was part of the open source startup e-smith up in Ottawa. David and I have continued to meet at trade shows over all these years and he’s a great guy. So I’m pleased for him that Sangoma is growing.It’s also an intriguing transaction because it moves Sangoma is a different direction from its past… they have primarily been a provider of PSTN-connection hardware with a heavy focus in recent years on Asterisk and open source. Now, with Paraxip, they move into Windows-based enterprise software! As Jon Arnold points out, the two companies already announced last September the integration of their products, so that part of an acquisition has already been done.
In any event, I’m pleased for them all that this has worked out and I wish them all the best. Here is some good analysis of the deal:
- Garrett Smith: Sangoma Broaden’s Their Horizons With Paraxip Deal
- Jon Arnold: Sangoma Acquires Paraxip – More…
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VoIPInsider: “101 Things You Can Do With Asterisk Contest”
Continue Reading: VoIPInsider: “101 Things You Can Do With Asterisk Contest”Garrett Smith and the team at VoIP Supply have partnered with Digium to have a little bit of fun with a new contest: “101 Things You Can Do With Asterisk Contest“. They started out looking for 101 unique things you could do with Asterisk and the idea that when they got 101 submissions they would pick one random winner for a $1500 VoIP Supply shopping spree.
However, they discovered there are a lot of people out there with ideas for what you can do with Asterisk. They put up their blog post at 11:08am and their 101st comment came just over two hours later at 1:21pm (a few comments had multiple ideas). As I write this, the list has grown to 151 comments and Garrett and crew have indicated that they will be leaving it open until Friday and then making their drawing.
Some great ideas in the comments to the post – well worth a read!
Technorati Tags: asterisk
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My presentations at VoiceCon this week…
Continue Reading: My presentations at VoiceCon this week…I’m down in Orlando this week for VoiceCon Orlando and will be part of three sessions. Tomorrow, I’m moderating a panel at 8am on VoIP security and on Thursday I’m moderating a panel on open source telephony. On Wednesday, I’ll be part of a keynote panel with Irwin Lazar on “Social networking and enterprise communication”, which should be quite fun. I’ll include below the full descriptions of the various sessions. If you are attending VoiceCon and want to connect, please do contact me.Session Title: Top VOIP Security Threats
Date: 3/18/2008
Time: 8:00 AM
Room: Osceola B
Session Description: There’s been a lot of concern about voice over IP security, but have there been many actual exploits? This session will inform you about the state of VOIP security. You’ll learn about generalized IP attacks that have affected IP telephony systems deployed on IP networks, and you’ll also find out what VOIP-specific attacks have actually been observed “in the wild”–and what to expect in the future.
KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the most serious voice-oriented attacks that are actually being carried out? What potential attacks haven’t occurred yet but probably will before long? * How do you protect your VOIP systems against… -
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TAUG – “Asterisk and Open Telephony Conference” – Toronto, April 7-9
Continue Reading: TAUG – “Asterisk and Open Telephony Conference” – Toronto, April 7-9Those of you interested in Asterisk and open source telephony may be interested in the “Asterisk & Open Telephony Conference” in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 7-9, 2008. Part of the larger IT360 conference, this Asterisk conference is being organized by members of the Toronto Asterisk User Group which is one of the largest Asterisk user groups in the world. Because of the TAUG influence, I expect it to be a solid show from a technical point of view with lots of practical information. I’m not currently planning to be there, but it looks to be a good one if you can get there.Technorati Tags: asterisk, conferences, open source, voip, ip telephony, taug, toronto, it360
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Digium launches the “Digium Asterisk Marketplace” to promote members of the Asterisk ecosystem
Continue Reading: Digium launches the “Digium Asterisk Marketplace” to promote members of the Asterisk ecosystemDigium recently announced that they have launched the “Digium Asterisk Marketplace” as a way to help connect users of Asterisk to partners in the “Asterisk ecosystem” who make products that work with Asterisk. Many of the folks listed there have been parters with Digium for some time and are often in Digium booths at various trade conferences but there were a few names new to me. At the time I am writing this, there are 30 members listed in the Marketplace but with the application form readily available, we’ll see how much this grows. The Asterisk blog entry lays out the terms:The price is right – a listing starts at $395 per quarter. In return, your company gets exposure to the thousands of unique visitors that cross the Digium site daily. Or you can get a more prominent “premium” listing for a few extra bucks. For a limited time, you can get a listing for a full year starting at $795 – about half the regular rate.
Later, we plan to add more cool features, such as the ability for users to provide feedback, more categories for listings, and the ability to buy selected partner products directly from…
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Asterisk crosses 1 million downloads in 2007
Continue Reading: Asterisk crosses 1 million downloads in 2007News out of Digium yesterday morning that there have now been over one million downloads of Asterisk in 2007:Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, today announced the one millionth download of Asterisk in 2007, capping off a record year for the leading open source telephony company. Digium, which will complete its 24th consecutive quarter of growth and profitability this year, created headlines with new executive appointments, industry awards, strategic partnerships and acquisitions aimed at further advancing the company’s presence in the small-to-medium-sized (SMB) VoIP market.
Now, granted, we have to remember that this is one million downloads and has no real indication of: a) how many of those downloads were actually installed; b) how many of those installations were simply tests and are not in actual production use; c) how many of those downloads were duplicate downloads by the same user; and d) how many of those downloads were updates as people installed new versions.
All that aside, it is a significant milestone for any project. Congrats to the Digium team!
P.S. I’m still waiting for an answer from Digium PR about how many downloads there are total for Asterisk. This is one million in 2007, but how does that…
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New Firefox VoIP extension that works with any SIP VoIP service and also Asterisk
Continue Reading: New Firefox VoIP extension that works with any SIP VoIP service and also AsteriskLast Thursday, Luca Filigheddu posted the announcement that his company’s Firefox VoIP extension now works with any SIP-based VoIP service. From his announcement:
A new version of the VoIP Extension is now available for download and it’s not limited to the Abbeyphone VoIP service only. You can insert your favorite VoIP service or even your company’s Asterisk PBX. The following VoIP providers are already included: Free World Dialup, Gizmo Project, VoIPStunt, VoIPCheap and Abbeyphone of course. More to come very soon.
I’ve not yet tried this out myself, but since it does work on the Mac as well as Windows and Linux I’m going to have to do so soon.
Cool to see… and if you want to try it out yourself, go to http://www.mozillavoip.com/
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The audacity of Asterisk – why the 3Com/Digium partnership fundamentally changes the game in SMB telephony
Continue Reading: The audacity of Asterisk – why the 3Com/Digium partnership fundamentally changes the game in SMB telephonyThe SMB VoIP game is changing. Fundamentally. And in a pattern we’ve seen before in other industries. In the news release out today, Digium and 3Com announced that:Under the terms of the agreement, 3Com will offer Digium’s award-winning Asterisk Appliance™ to small businesses that need a reliable, easy-to-deploy voice solution based on open standards. 3Com Asterisk will be available through the company’s proven channel of partners worldwide.
Let’s think about that for a minute. 3Com will make Digium’s Asterisk appliance available through “the company’s proven channel of partner’s worldwide“, which some reports are putting at around 60,000 resellers. Digium just wound up with a large global sales channel. Yet to be seen is whether there will be any channel conflict with existing Digium Partners/VARs, but regardless, Digium just wound up with a way to deploy Asterisk-based solutions globally. It does, however, get one step better (my emphasis added):“3Com is focused on delivering products and solutions for converged secure networks, in which voice is an application that can be readily integrated with many others,” said Bob Dechant, senior vice president and general manager for 3Com Corporation. “We’ve announced a complete voice strategy and new product offerings for small businesses, including…
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Digium buys SwitchVox and gets presence, Web 2.0 interface, mashups to Google Maps, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM…
Continue Reading: Digium buys SwitchVox and gets presence, Web 2.0 interface, mashups to Google Maps, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM…Imagine you are a customer service rep (CSR) at a small/medium company and a phone call comes in from a customer. As your phone rings, up on your screen pops all the information about that customer, pulled from your CRM database in Salesforce.com or SugarCRM, plus other information from other databases and finally a nice Google Map showing you where that customer is located and potentially other information like the locations of your nearest offices. During the call, the CSR needs to bring in a subject matter expert so the CSR consults their web panel and looks at the presence information displayed for each of the other people in the business. The CSR can then contact someone showing as available and potentially bring them into the call.
Now imagine that all that is running on top of open source telephony… specifically Asterisk.
You can now stop imagining, because Digium just bought the company that does precisely that. There will undoubtedly be much attention today (at the very least in the VoIP blogosphere) about Digium’s announcement here at AstriCon today that they have acquired SwitchVox. I am going to bet that much of the reporting today will focus on angles…
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Zoiper – a free SIP / IAX softphone for Windows, Linux or Mac
Continue Reading: Zoiper – a free SIP / IAX softphone for Windows, Linux or MacIn watching Jay Phillips do his great presentation here today at AstriCon about Ruby and his Adhearsion package, I found myself wondering what the interesting little softphone was that he was using. It turned out to be “Zoiper“, an IAX or SIP softphone that was previously called “Idefisk”. (I can understand perhaps why they changed the name… “Idefisk” does not exactly roll off your tongue.) There turn out to be two versions (comparison chart here): a free version and a “Zoiper Biz” version which includes more functionality and starts around 30 euros.
Clearly built for Asterisk, it was interesting to note that it supports both SIP and also Asterisk’s own IAX protocol. Anyway, I just thought I’d share that this softphone is out there if you were not aware of it.