This morning on "Sunday Morning" there was an interesting piece on branding in grocery store aisles. Growing up with parents who owned a similar business I reflected on Digium's user experience for visitors to our web site(s). There are thousands of items in a grocery store. Think about it - when you walk down each aisle...what catches your eye? Do you buy packaging? Color? Labels? Do you care? How easy is it to find what you want? Is it easy to navigate around the store? Do you go back to the same store because you like the experience? Do you not return because of the experience?
These days web sites are for the savvy online shopper, researcher, buyer, reseller - does not matter - the web site must appeal to whoever goes to your site. It must be easy to find, easy to navigate, information must be presented clearly and completely and must be integrated with the overall Internet experience.
At Digium, we have a top notch webmaster for all our sites:
www.digium.com
www.asterisk.org
www.asterisknow.org
....and our secondary event sites are managed jointly:
www.astricon.net
www.digiumasteriskworld.com
....and our acquired Switchvox products:
www.switchvox.com (integration with www.digium.com is in progress)
www.digium.com/switchvox
Digium's web site recently received a 98/100 grade by a partner firm working with us on our Internet Marketing efforts. We receive tremendous credit for our sites, blogs, content, ease of use and we have many programs in motion to make it better and leverage the entire Internet.
The web site is an important element for Digium, the leading IP Telephony open source, viral marketing oriented company who also must monetize the commercial aspects of our business. We take this seriously and have much higher rankings than many traditional players in our market segments for IP Telephony. With our free downloads, value-added products, partner and reseller portals, mailing lists, and overall Asterisk and product information we have many visitors and maintaining the operations is demanding and requires perfection in every possible way. Anyone who knows Digium knows our web sites frequently change and stays as current as possible. Look for more enhancements to the user experience and if you have any comments send a note to the webmaster!
Check it all out at the above web sites.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Who is Digium? What is Asterisk?
I get this question a lot!! At the tradeshows and events we always have a collateral piece that explains this. You can find this at: http://www.digium.com/en/company/. Look on the right side of the screen under "Working at Digium" and read this PDF.
Last week at VoiceCon and Digium Asterisk World at VON, Digium employees shared this information dozens of times as we had lots of interested visitors and meetings.
What is important is to answer some questions I get daily:
----------------------------------------------------------
{What Business is Digium in??}
Answers:
1. Digium is in the PCI and PCI express board business for TDM-VoIP gateway cards and voice processing cards. We have been since Q4 2001 and has been a key enabler for Asterisk installations globally. Digium has shipped over 3M TDM ports.
- Digium is heavily invested in this business.
- Digium has re-architected the cards in the past 12 months
- Digium has increased warranties for boards
- Digium as introduced the Exceptional Satisfaction Program that guarantees customer satisfaction - not just for boards, but across product lines including all commercial offerings
FACT: Digium is in the board business!
2. Digium offers the AA50 Asterisk Appliance worldwide. I am asked daily, if Digium is still offering this product. You bet we are. This product is OEM'd by 3Com as the 3Com Asterisk Appliance: http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=features&pathtype=purchase&sku=3CR10551A
It is also OEM'd by other companies that are not yet announced but shipments have begun. It's got the AsteriskGUI for configuration and fits small offices and branch offices with basic IP telephony requirements very nicely. Now in it's third release of software, we have a solid roadmap of both hardware improvements and software improvements and this product continues.
FACT: Digium sells the AA50 Asterisk Appliance to small businesses
3. Digium offers the Switchvox family of SOHO and SMB software as well as a complete line of hardware appliances including the newly announced AA60, and two other appliances that are rack mounted: www.digium.com/switchvox. There is a Switchvox Free version to download and try that gives you a glimpse into its advanced user interface. SMB provides the most advanced features including mashups for salesforce.com and SugarCRM as well as Googlemaps and user built URL panels that enhance the user experience.
FACT: Digium sells turnkey IP Telephony Solutions built on Switchvox
4. Digium offers the Asterisk Business Edition as a commercial offering toolkit that can be used for building IP PBXs, IVR systems, call canters, etc. Stay tuned for some new announcements around ABE soon! ABE has been around for a few years now and companies that build on ABE wants stable commercially built and tested Asterisk.
FACT: Asterisk Business Edition is a great toolkit choice for many users who build their own solutions and like either the AsteriskGUI or command line option.
5. Digium offers AsteriskNOW 1.0, a free download distribution including Asterisk, Linux and the AsteriskGUI at www.asterisknow.org. This is an open source toolkit that can be used by anyone to build solutions or try before buying. Many customers try this and upgrade to Asterisk Business Edition to purchase support and indemnification.
FACT: Digium offers the open source distribution of AsteriskNOW.
So In summary, a Day in the Life of Digium can be any of these! It might be ALL of these!
Last week at VoiceCon and Digium Asterisk World at VON, Digium employees shared this information dozens of times as we had lots of interested visitors and meetings.
What is important is to answer some questions I get daily:
----------------------------------------------------------
{What Business is Digium in??}
Answers:
1. Digium is in the PCI and PCI express board business for TDM-VoIP gateway cards and voice processing cards. We have been since Q4 2001 and has been a key enabler for Asterisk installations globally. Digium has shipped over 3M TDM ports.
- Digium is heavily invested in this business.
- Digium has re-architected the cards in the past 12 months
- Digium has increased warranties for boards
- Digium as introduced the Exceptional Satisfaction Program that guarantees customer satisfaction - not just for boards, but across product lines including all commercial offerings
FACT: Digium is in the board business!
2. Digium offers the AA50 Asterisk Appliance worldwide. I am asked daily, if Digium is still offering this product. You bet we are. This product is OEM'd by 3Com as the 3Com Asterisk Appliance: http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=features&pathtype=purchase&sku=3CR10551A
It is also OEM'd by other companies that are not yet announced but shipments have begun. It's got the AsteriskGUI for configuration and fits small offices and branch offices with basic IP telephony requirements very nicely. Now in it's third release of software, we have a solid roadmap of both hardware improvements and software improvements and this product continues.
FACT: Digium sells the AA50 Asterisk Appliance to small businesses
3. Digium offers the Switchvox family of SOHO and SMB software as well as a complete line of hardware appliances including the newly announced AA60, and two other appliances that are rack mounted: www.digium.com/switchvox. There is a Switchvox Free version to download and try that gives you a glimpse into its advanced user interface. SMB provides the most advanced features including mashups for salesforce.com and SugarCRM as well as Googlemaps and user built URL panels that enhance the user experience.
FACT: Digium sells turnkey IP Telephony Solutions built on Switchvox
4. Digium offers the Asterisk Business Edition as a commercial offering toolkit that can be used for building IP PBXs, IVR systems, call canters, etc. Stay tuned for some new announcements around ABE soon! ABE has been around for a few years now and companies that build on ABE wants stable commercially built and tested Asterisk.
FACT: Asterisk Business Edition is a great toolkit choice for many users who build their own solutions and like either the AsteriskGUI or command line option.
5. Digium offers AsteriskNOW 1.0, a free download distribution including Asterisk, Linux and the AsteriskGUI at www.asterisknow.org. This is an open source toolkit that can be used by anyone to build solutions or try before buying. Many customers try this and upgrade to Asterisk Business Edition to purchase support and indemnification.
FACT: Digium offers the open source distribution of AsteriskNOW.
So In summary, a Day in the Life of Digium can be any of these! It might be ALL of these!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Switchvox Momentum
Today was quite a day. Costco came in to provide free food - not the 'good for you' kind but it was good with a strong cup of coffee from Aroma's, the coffee shop at Digium.
We had our usual meetings and then we discussed some new programs we are planning and getting ready for promoting Switchvox, an Asterisk-based powerful business phone system. This SOHO and SMB VoIP product family is unreal. It's now our standard business IP PBX at Digium. We each use the Switchboard, which provides an interface directly to Salesforce.com and Googlemaps, so when a call comes in thats in my data base it brings up their record plus places a pin on Google maps from caller id location. Check it out - here are some screenshots: http://www.switchvox.com/sv?cmd=screenshots. here is a presence based receptionist screen: http://www.switchvox.com/sv?cmd=screenshots. And many user and admin screens are located at this URL.
There is also a free version to try - enjoy: http://www.switchvox.com/sv?page=free_edition
This new article talks about an Asterisk-based PBX, but this customer is talking about his Switchvox system: http://vonmag.com/editorial/whatworks/grinding-out-a-phone-solution
Enjoy reading the information at the above links. This system deserves your attention. Powerful, advanced web 2.0 mashups, and a great business phone system based on Asterisk and IP.
We had our usual meetings and then we discussed some new programs we are planning and getting ready for promoting Switchvox, an Asterisk-based powerful business phone system. This SOHO and SMB VoIP product family is unreal. It's now our standard business IP PBX at Digium. We each use the Switchboard, which provides an interface directly to Salesforce.com and Googlemaps, so when a call comes in thats in my data base it brings up their record plus places a pin on Google maps from caller id location. Check it out - here are some screenshots: http://www.switchvox.com/sv?cmd=screenshots. here is a presence based receptionist screen: http://www.switchvox.com/sv?cmd=screenshots. And many user and admin screens are located at this URL.
There is also a free version to try - enjoy: http://www.switchvox.com/sv?page=free_edition
This new article talks about an Asterisk-based PBX, but this customer is talking about his Switchvox system: http://vonmag.com/editorial/whatworks/grinding-out-a-phone-solution
Enjoy reading the information at the above links. This system deserves your attention. Powerful, advanced web 2.0 mashups, and a great business phone system based on Asterisk and IP.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Calling All Asterisk Appliances
It is pretty amazing how many people and companies have created Asterisk-based appliances since Digium created the Asterisk Appliance, currently named the AA50. The first of many Digium appliances, some solid state and some purpose-built server appliances, the AA50 set the bar in which everyone chases. Some are bigger, some are smaller, some have analog ports for gateway functionality to PSTNs and some are pure IP. It does not matter what they have but the SMB consumer gains choices based on open source Asterisk.
As the global leader in open source telephony, we pave the way for others to follow and proliferate the market along with Digium allowing customers freedom of choice.
A recent Network World blog written by Matthew Nickasch and entitled, "Appliances Run Amok" (http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/25408) explored the Appliance concept. Check out this highly electrified thread.
Back from Vacation
Hello all, it's been a while as I took some time in Thailand on vacation before getting back into it all. You may have seen some blog action this week and I will address that in a follow-on piece. If you've never been to Thailand, you're missing some very interesting experiences:
- great people
- great hosts
- outstanding golf
- food out of this word!
- terrific real estate
In Udon Thani near the Laos border, seen with wife and friends (I have the coffee in hand) we found beer, ice cream and coffee. The trip was terrific. Udon, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai were on the agenda and we visited the Grand Palace, the Summer Palace, many shopping places where you can also see the Thai people make silver, lacquerware, jewelry, silk and several things. A group of over 20 of us celebrated our friend's 40th wedding anniversary. The top picture is the scene of the anniversary party at our friends' village. Once in a lifetime trip!
Getting back this week was great and we are now readying Digium Asterisk World at VON in San Jose and VoiceCon in Orlando.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Quite a Week thanks to Google
As I sit here watching the Patriots-Chargers game, I reflect this past week. I can tell you I am proud to be part of the Digium executive team. We had the Google AdWord debacle this week. Read more at http://blogs.digium.com. If you are on the asterisk-biz mailing list you'd have seen the unforeseen issues caused by the approach Digium took that had to be changed a day or two later. Danny Windham, our CEO, published our relaxed policy Friday night and Saturday I posted a FAQ for further details and clarification of the most anticipated questions.
Our listening to the Asterisk community combined with our sense of urgency to do the right thing makes Digium the leader it is in both open source and VoIP.
This past week has got me thinking just how powerful Google has become. Although many of us use Google for searches every day, and use Google for marketing campaigns this has really shown us how much power has moved to Google's business model. We learned how effective their AdWords can be and how ineffective their internal process is to handle it. The reason why? Because their is so much going on with these types of situations everywhere. That is why they could not commit to turn-around time even though they say they understand our sense of urgency. Imagine how much money they actually make on AdWords. We knew there was a lot of business use/and misuse or our marks, but were truly blown away at the end of the day how many folks purchased AdWords.
Does this Google power bother anyone? If businesses go to Google to become their corporate email/calendaring system, what happens when you have a problem, will this also be ineffective? It certainly brings up a comparison of the effectiveness of customer support for Google's good products. Will it always be slow support and/or lack of sense of urgency for business? I don't know yet. But I would be concerned. We will see how fast they follow through with our current request. I will keep you all updated here as many of us do care. Maybe tomorrow it's fixed. Maybe next week. Who knows.
This is just food for thought. Nothing more, nothing less, but since we learned from this why not more of us learn from it. Happy surfing and will see you at IT Expo this week. Know what time it is? Patriots 14, Chargers 6.
Our listening to the Asterisk community combined with our sense of urgency to do the right thing makes Digium the leader it is in both open source and VoIP.
This past week has got me thinking just how powerful Google has become. Although many of us use Google for searches every day, and use Google for marketing campaigns this has really shown us how much power has moved to Google's business model. We learned how effective their AdWords can be and how ineffective their internal process is to handle it. The reason why? Because their is so much going on with these types of situations everywhere. That is why they could not commit to turn-around time even though they say they understand our sense of urgency. Imagine how much money they actually make on AdWords. We knew there was a lot of business use/and misuse or our marks, but were truly blown away at the end of the day how many folks purchased AdWords.
Does this Google power bother anyone? If businesses go to Google to become their corporate email/calendaring system, what happens when you have a problem, will this also be ineffective? It certainly brings up a comparison of the effectiveness of customer support for Google's good products. Will it always be slow support and/or lack of sense of urgency for business? I don't know yet. But I would be concerned. We will see how fast they follow through with our current request. I will keep you all updated here as many of us do care. Maybe tomorrow it's fixed. Maybe next week. Who knows.
This is just food for thought. Nothing more, nothing less, but since we learned from this why not more of us learn from it. Happy surfing and will see you at IT Expo this week. Know what time it is? Patriots 14, Chargers 6.
Monday, January 14, 2008
IT Expo in Miami, FL
We are getting ready to go to IT Expo. It's been relatively easy this time around as we have a small group attending and working our booth; our goals are to continue to show how great Switchvox SOHO and SMB solutions are and we will have the AA50 Asterisk Appliance to show those who like this form factor in small business and remote office situations.
We will show off some new products so stop by and visit us.
Digium and 3Com are on a panel together Wednesday 1/25 at 11:00 AM to update the audience on the state of open source; the presentation will show the "big picture" of complete open source infrastructure solutions and Asterisk IP Telephony as the voice application. It will be informative.
Miami is also a lot warmer than the Northeast. Of course parts of the NE are hot - especially New England where the Patriots are blazing new trails in uncharted territory - 17 and 0 and counting; to go for yet another record!
Many of us watched the entertaining NFL playoffs this past weekend. Yes, there are football fans aplenty in Huntsville. Now we have an AFC Championship game between the Pats (my hometown) and San Diego (Switchvox's home)! No one seemed to care about the Packers and Giants. Maybe I just don't see it.
Check our corporate blog this week for new product information.
http://blogs.digium.com/
................bill
We will show off some new products so stop by and visit us.
Digium and 3Com are on a panel together Wednesday 1/25 at 11:00 AM to update the audience on the state of open source; the presentation will show the "big picture" of complete open source infrastructure solutions and Asterisk IP Telephony as the voice application. It will be informative.
Miami is also a lot warmer than the Northeast. Of course parts of the NE are hot - especially New England where the Patriots are blazing new trails in uncharted territory - 17 and 0 and counting; to go for yet another record!
Many of us watched the entertaining NFL playoffs this past weekend. Yes, there are football fans aplenty in Huntsville. Now we have an AFC Championship game between the Pats (my hometown) and San Diego (Switchvox's home)! No one seemed to care about the Packers and Giants. Maybe I just don't see it.
Check our corporate blog this week for new product information.
http://blogs.digium.com/
................bill
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