julie April 12th, 2008

Digium would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants and exhibitors from Digium Asterisk World (DAW) in Boston (October 2007) and San Jose (March 2008). We are excited in the growing interest in the Asterisk open source telephony software and look forward to seeing you all and more attendees at our next event! We at Digium believe our experiment with DAW was a tremendous success. We are committed to Astricon.

The Digium team enjoyed working with the Pulvermedia team and wish them all the best. Digium, however, will move forward by growing AstriCon, the original and only dedicated Asterisk Open Source Telephony Conference. We hope that those who of you supported and were excited by the DAW event strategy will join us at AstriCon in Glendale, AZ in September of 2008.

Last year, we had a successful event in spite of the last minute venue changes forced by the new hotel not being ready in time. Those challenges moved us to the outskirts of the city. This year we are committed to the event and to make it better than ever! The venue is completed and committed to working with Digium to deliver a world class event. It is a great new hotel!

Dates: September 22 - 25, 2008

Venue, check it out:

Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa
9495 W. Coyotes Boulevard
Glendale, AZ 85305
Phone: 623-937-3700
Toll free: 1-800-Marriott

This event is open to all those companies in the Asterisk ecosystem. Because this event is designed for Asterisk community and Asterisk enthusiasts, we are expanding it to add a business track as well. As Asterisk moves mainstream, expect the usual technical track, Asterisk 101, business track, code zone for developers, resellers and integrators, and a world class slate of speakers and workshops.

Digium will sponsor and manage the event and we will encourage booth space and sponsorships to help grow the event! Our goal is to educate more people about Asterisk, advance people’s knowledge who are already using Asterisk, and share everything from best practices in open source to end user experiences.

Check out www.astricon.net next week to follow the changes which will start to occur frequently. Stay tuned. for more information on Astricon, check out the web site - give us a few days to get this work completed.

We look forward to seeing you all this year at Astricon in AZ!

• AstriCon , Channel , Community , Digium , Digium Asterisk World , Open Source , Tradeshows
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beelinebill March 21st, 2008

Digium was active this week at both Digium Asterisk World (DAW) in San Jose and VoiceCon in Orlando. It was a very successful week for us all here at Digium and the results of both events clearly indicated continued growth and interest in Asterisk, Asterisk market success, and Digium and partner product offerings!

Tuesday was a news-filled day for Digium http://www.digium.com/en/mediacenter/. Digium Asterisk World kicked off at VON.x in San Jose with Mark Spencer’s Keynote address at Digium Asterisk World. Danny Windham, our CEO, did a VON.x keynote - An Open Source VoIP Primer - to a full room of enterprise users, potential Asterisk adopters, and open source Asterisk interested parties.

Numerous other Digium folks presented at DAW including Jared Smith, Steve Sokol and Brian Degenhardt. VoiceCon in Orlando on the opposite coast ran with talks by both Mark Spencer and Bill Miller on Thursday.

There were three announcements that are exciting to Digium and they include A global Distribution partnership with Westcon to distribute the entire line of Digium products. Westcon’s new CollaborationPoint line of business is focused on open source solutions including Digium’s Switchvox IP PBX (http://www.digium.com/switchvox), the Asterisk Appliance (http://www.digium.com/en/products/appliance/), and Asterisk Developer Solutions and toolkits including all Digium’s telephony cards and Asterisk Business Edition (http://www.digium.com/en/products/).

Tuesday Digium announced the Switchvox SMB 3.5 release, the new version of the award winning SMB software that already includes the Switchboard user panels with built in Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, and Google Maps web-based interface panels. These built in tools allow users to build outstanding customer and support relations with their target customers. New features include multi-level administration - unlimited levels, built in Phone Configuration tools which are great for resellers and larger systems allowing provisioning of Polycom phones in minutes using batch tools for DID assignments and caller IDs, and adding of extensions, and the ability to easily find users in the directory by simply typing the name and similar to your cell phones locates the name directly in as few keystrokes as possible. Also, the SMB 3.5 software automatically populates the users desktop Polycom phone directory with contact info from the Switchvox address book - a time saving tool and excellent user experience.

Digium’s newest appliance, the Switchvox Appliance AA60 was also announced Tuesday and will be available with Switchvox SMB 3.5 software on March 31. The AA60 is a small footprint wall mountable package that offers higher reliability and lower costs and includes a standard 1 year warranty and an extended warranty option for 3 years.

Lastly, Digium announced our call for second annual “Innovation Award” entries http://www.digium.com/en/company/awards/. In 2007, we had an overwhelming response and for 2008, we have invited an outside community judge - more later on this person. Winners will be announced at Astricon in Phoenix in September and be invited to speak about their winning innovations at DAW in October in Boston. This is a great PR opportunity for those involved!

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I was at VoiceCon. I can share with you some of the event happenings. Digium’s booth was busy from start to finish full with enterprise users, resellers from major IP Telephony vendors who want to add Digium’s products to their offerings, and partners. Tristan, Randy and Gayle were overwhelmed giving demos, answering questions and setting up follow-on meetings. I was busy with three and a half days of press and analyst meetings. Mark Spencer flew to Orlando to participate in the “VoiceCon Summit: Software Architectures for Unified Communications” featuring Digium, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, Mitel, and moderated by Fred Knight (Jitter.com Publisher and VoiceCon co-chair) and Jim Burton (UC Strategies). I did a panel with 3Com and Nortel on “Open Source in the Enterprise: How much and how soon?”

= = = =

Digium Asterisk World reports came back that Mark’s keynote (Why Digium Asterisk World?) and Danny’s keynote (An Open Source VoIP Primer) were well received and well attended. Digium had several other speakers: Brian Degenhardt spoke on the impact of next generation web technology on open source telephony applications, Steve Sokol on flexible platforms that enable voice applications, and Jared Smith did an introduction to Asterisk - all in the Open Source DAW track where all sessions were well attended. John Todd was the guest moderator and feedback was he did an excellent job - Digium and Pulvermedia thank John for his efforts making the overall program a success!

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We are hoping that overlapping events like this week never happen again! Please Pulvermedia and VoiceCon….no more concurrent dates!

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One last item that was my “you can’t make this stuff up moment”:

As VoiceCon was ending there was a chearleading event moving into the Gaylord Palms (a terrific venue by the way if you’ve never been there). The final day sessions of the conference were running as the convention committee placed placards in each rest room - Men’s AND Women’s! Now, why is the “AND” capitalized? Check this out:

• ABE , Asterisk Awards , AsteriskNOW , Channel , Digium Asterisk World , Open Source , Partners , Products , Switchvox , Tradeshows , VoiceCon
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beelinebill October 29th, 2007

What a time to be in Boston! Arrive as the Patriots close out the first half season at 8-0 by blowing out the Redskins. Follow that with the closing out of their second World Series win in 4 years. The inaugural Digium Asterisk World follows these winning events at what is expected to be the largest VON show in recent history. We are ready to enjoy this first ever event! Mark Spencer will keynote Wednesday morning on “The Road Ahead is Open!” while Danny Windham will kickoff the Digium Asterisk World Conference itself, with “Hello World” as the open source telephony movement enters mainstream.

What is it like to be in Boston? Each channel on the hotel TV has “specials” on the Red Sox. The Red Sox Nation - the worldwide fans of the winners - go wild everywhere! In watching the winners’ recaps on these TV shows, I am drawing parallels to our approaches. Preparation. Each of these winners have outstanding coaching staffs and management teams. Each of these winners prepare mentally and physically for each event, game or series, and it shows. Each of these winning teams emphasize teamwork. Each of these winning teams, when asked about the approach, answer that they focus and plan one game at a time - one situation at a time - one event at a time. Most importantly, each team has a game plan. Baseball never used to have a game plan, but with the technology available today with real time and open communications statistics are available to make situational plans and are used heavily by these winners.

Digium approaches our growing open source Asterisk-based business applying all the Boston winners’ strategies. Excellent management team and coaching staffs with preparation for each event with an emphasis on teamwork, and we approach each event with a game plan. Our team is a mix of veterans and youngsters that mirrors the Red Sox and Patriots.

Yes, it’s a great time of year to be in Boston! Terrific fall weather, the BIG DIG is over, the Red Sox win the World Series, and the Patriots celebrate their season thus far - while Fall VON 2007 kicks off featuring Digium Asterisk World front and center. Digium Asterisk World is the coming out party of Mark Spencer’s Nation - the Asterisk believers who have followed and supported Mark since creating Asterisk and finding Digium, the Asterisk Company - as we bring Asterisk IP Telephony to Business. Red Sox, Patriots, Digium Asterisk: Winners

• Community , Flip flops , Tradeshows
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kshumard October 3rd, 2007

Well, another AstriCon has come and gone. This year’s Ast-rav-a-ganza in sunny Phoenix, AZ was another spectacle of Asterisk-based presentations and networking. It’s always exciting to me to meet members of the Asterisk community in person, especially ones whose bugtracker aliases or IRC nicks are well known to me. Matching faces to names/handles is always surprising in one way or another, but the added dimension of a real live person makes the connection seem more real somehow.

Most of my time at AstriCon this year was spent in our 10′ by 20′ booth. Besides handing out cool Digium gear like bright orange hats with our Digium bubble, bright orange “GEEK” t-shirts, and free HPEC and G.729 licenses, I also got to meet and greet hundreds of Asterisk users, administrators, and entrepreneurs. Being one of the “tech guys,” I had plenty of opportunities to hear about unique Asterisk installs and suggest tweaks or improvements. The numerous ways that people continue to extend and deploy Asterisk continually amaze me.

Of course, the big event of the week was the announcement of the Switchvox acquisition. Because that happened Wednesday night, and the Switchvox booth was adjacent to the Digium booth, we were able to tear down the wall, thank you Mr. Gorbachev, between our booths and merge into one larger L-shaped booth for Thursday and Friday. After that, “booth duty” was much simpler because Tristan from Switchvox stole the show with her live demos of the Switchvox platform. I hadn’t previously seen Switchvox’s capabilities; I don’t think I was the only person at AstriCon to be impressed by its capabilities.

Working in the booth, I missed Marko’s keynote (maybe next year the expo hall will close for keynote addresses?). But there were plenty of conversations at the booth on Friday morning describing varying accounts of how he almost crashed a golf cart at top speed during his ‘grand entrance.’ Between that and Allison “The Voice of Asterisk” Smith’s orange-and-white Asterisk dress at the Digium-sponsored party Thursday night, it was an Astricon to remember. Here’s to hoping next year’s Astricon is even better. : )

• AstriCon , Community , Tradeshows
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beelinebill September 27th, 2007

Today Digium announces that Switchvox has become part of the Digium family. This is a group of talented people whose mission in life is to change the world by making things that simply work. In their past lives, the founders developed small systems that were self-contained and each time they progressively improved their vision. With their Switchvox IP PBX technology to deliver VoIP and hybrid solutions to small and medium businesses, they accomplished just that. Their asterisk-based IP PBX software simply works. It’s GUI is second to none to run an office phone system. It’s Web 2.0 Mashups are simply elegant, informational, and cool. The people are terrific and they are welcomed into Digium.

Today at Astricon will be an event of large proportion in the Asterisk open source community. For the first time, we will unveil the Digium Switchvox software in our booth. Users will see this simplicity, already installed and used in some 1400 installations with over 65,000 connected IP and analog phones. The personalities of the creators of this user-friendly software based on Asterisk are integrated into this offering and each release becomes easier to use for more people and businesses - driving Asterisk-based solutions into the mass market.

Digium and Switchvox executives will talk to attendees and community members today and answer any questions as best we can on the first day of an announcement. More details will be unveiled over the coming months. Some Bloggers who were briefed have already posted their first stories. Some posters are much more professional than others. I’ve seen the initial posts from people who were briefed earlier in the day and people who were in the right place at the right time at Astricon later last night after the Digium-Switchvox team had a joint signing celebration. Like software based on Asterisk, the blogs vary from easy on the eyes to read and understand to not so easy to understand or even comprehend what angle the writer was trying to take. Switchvox software based on Asterisk is clearly superior and easily accomplishes the workhorse tasks of a phone system in easy to read and understand graphical formats integrated with the web.

Other Asterisk-based software has lots of stuff and can do lots of what Asterisk can do, which is “immense” as described last night but is not elegantly presented or easy to use.

So read the blogs and the articles. After days of briefing press and analysts, you will read upcoming articles that you personally can compare, to describe the writer’s personal felt impact of what Digium’s acquisition of Switchvox will have on the Asterisk Community, Switchvox customers and partners, and Digium’s customers and partners. You decide which writers are bizarre, which writers are aligned with competitors, which writers “get it” and which writers are aligned with Digium’s and Switchvox’s vision.

The open source community will gain from Digium’s move. Elements of Switchvox’s solution will be contributed back to the community over time. Digium’s success is always shared with the community by continued and increased investments in open source resources and events such as Astricon and Digium Asterisk World where users and prospects meet and learn more about how to use Asterisk, how to market Asterisk-based products, how to build dial plans that can turn the tables on a telemarketer, and on and on. Customers and prospects learn about more open source based choices.

Danny and Josh, the two respective CEOs will publish their thoughts here shortly, I am prefacing their post by telling you, “Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!” Get ready to Rock and Roll with Digium and Switchvox. When “best of breeds” get together, the results are “best of the best” so join us for the ride!

• ABE , AsteriskNOW , AstriCon , Community , Products , Tradeshows
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