The New Emerging Open Source "Mobile" Parade and Food for Thought on Thanksgiving

I can't believe it's been six months since I published a post here, I promise to do better. As I watch the Macy's Parade today, I started thinking about some market dynamics and disruptions we have been witnessing in recent months. Those who know me know I use an iPhone and am in my second year of loving this phone. Why? Applications - ease of use - the collaborative nature of this device - which is the leading market disruptor for mobile phones - and the way it has carved out an entire industry. Let's look at what I mean.

I talk on the phone maybe 5% of the time I use this device. Mobile devices used to be either 100% phones or 100% email. I am on email mostly, text, the web, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, taking pictures, checking weather, travel arrangements, and so on.  I am not an online game player but I have a couple of individual games I enjoy. It has become a collaboration tool. It is even an extension of my Digium Switchvox phone system - my calling rules set to find me/follow me to my mobile and if I don't recognize the number (yes, I see caller ID) or am tied up it bounces back to my office voicemail. Cool call screening method, eh? More importantly, I have improved my productivity with my iPhone. It's only going to get better. On business trips, I find I use my laptop less and less each trip.

Now, the more interesting 'technology disruption' is the coming force of - Google Android. That's right, Android. This open source OS is being used for mobile phones and desktop phones. The nature of open source lends itself to a broad community of developers. My Digium and Asterisk experience helps me understand the potential of the future Android AppStore - or maybe AppStores. It's not there yet, but eventually the community and commercial offspring will be the driving forces. Like the iPhone and Apple's iTunes AppStore the Android mobile phones and desktop phones will create nightmares for traditional players. This market is exciting. Just check the number of Android-based products appearing.

Note that these are mostly all consumer oriented.  Well, guess what? The features and capabilities of iPhones and Android-based mobile phones are so compelling, they have permeated their way into business enterprises of all sizes. RIM's Blackberry devices, although a  favorite of many, are under attack and IT executives are listening. More companies are allowing "user supplied" choice of mobile phones for a number of reasons: unbeatable features, cost - the individual owns the phone, and the collaborative nature of these phones does lend itself to increased productivity. The management of these devices is a huge new market opportunity but this disruption parade has begun! 

This is the tip of the iceberg. As more evolves I'll cover some of the more interesting developments here. In the meantime, watch Google's Android progress. Thanks for stopping by and now it's nearly time for "food to eat" rather than "food for thought!" And of course football! Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

Resellers A-plenty

Last year at this time we were just defining the authorized reseller program. We were gearing up for a whole new world coming from pure open source software with some commercial business to today where we have much more open source Asterisk and exponentially more commercial Asterisk business. This is all good as Digium continues to invest in open source and commercial development.

Well, this year we have implemented what we believe to be a pretty substantial program with solid benefits to the resellers and the best open source telephony products out there.

So being attacked by competition is the sincerest form of flattery - being called out by a competitor on a press release gives us free press. Marketing 101: get your facts straight. Marketing 102: Don't call out your competitors. Especially when the story is not really 100% accurate, at least by company records. Good thing we don't list all the resellers that have signed up with us who currently are selling and phasing out other telephony systems today - from open source competitors to tier one IP Telephony leaders. Good for us. In the past 3 months, we have signed up and qualified over 250 data and voice resellers and continue to work closely with our new distributors to recruit resellers. Revenues reflect the success.

Our goal is to be the most channel friendly company in our segment. Offering best margins, great support, and best-in-class products to enable successful growth.

We love the channel, we love our strategy and we are making huge inroads while we continue to set sales and growth records.

Check us out: www.digium.com

Switchvox SMB 3.5/AA60 Shipped Today

Just another fun day at Digium.

The San Diego team completed the software release and shipped ON TIME and as announced at Digium Asterisk World/VON and VoiceCon two weeks ago. The team really nailed it and busted tail today shipping all they could with pre-installed software, configured systems, and shipped to purchasers.

What is included?

Switchvox SMB 3.5
Switchvox A60 Appliance with Switchvox installed on the appliance (SOHO or SMB 3.5)

Take the worry out of unknown hardware and use the Digium AA60 and AA350 Appliance family for top notch operation and performance!

The web, the collateral, the channel training and slide decks via reseller portal, pricing, performance, you name it and the team finished it and more!

We have gotten far better at announcing and shipping products at Digium.

Check it out at www.digium.com/switchvox.

The Web Site.....Internet Branding

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.

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!

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.