Predictions for Last 3/4ths of 2009:

I started this blog in early January and have had to rename and rewrite it for the last 3/4 not for entire year. It has given me a little visibility into some 2009 trends. We will visit here some marketing trends for this year including trade shows, marketing chatter such as social media tools (but believe me, not a focus as there are literally hundreds of "experts" on Twitter telling you all about this) and some technology trends. Those who follow me on Twitter and Facebook know I have been researching desktop phones for business over the next 5 years and will follow this with a series on this topic. I have had some great input from folks not in the phone business which was my hope.

As we move along in Q2 for calendar year 2009, President Obama uses the web and social media and has appointed a CIO - what a concept - a technology-aware white house. We have seen the AIG fiasco where employment contracts thus far have won out over taxpayers dollars and a politically charged environment where laws will be changed for bailed out companies. The auto industry is the latest casualty. Wonder whose next? Wonder how it plays out?

We are watching many companies hang tough but they experience cut backs and reduced spending making it painful to proceed. Many friends and former colleagues are jobless. We have seen some industry trade shows and conferences aimed at "targeted" audiences grow through larger attendance while others not be as successful. We are experiencing a stock market that makes us not want to look at our portfolio statements most of the time. How will we emerge when the economy turns around?

But through these challenging times live silver linings - potentially lucrative ideas, new solutions, new ways to reduce costs and save money with select investments, and overall a cautious optimism that the recession will start to turn around. Some of the best companies emerged nicely during previous recessions. I believe open source software will be the foundation of the future enterprise for many reasons. Control, flexibility, personalization, and lower total cost of ownership are some of the driving factors.

Let's look at some downsides before we visit the upside trends.

Not so good late 2008/early 2009 trends:

- Layoffs
- Foreclosures
- Corruption (ie Maddoff, AIG, Citibank, and many others)
- Stock Market decline
- Unsure business, financials and cash can delay spending

Reasonably good trends:

- Social media in the mainstream in marketing, customer service, and the news
- Interest in Open Source-based business solutions rising
- Filly beats the Colts&Gelding in the Preakness triple crown race for 1st time in 85 years
- Excellent business class iPhone Applications

Promising trends for the remainder of 2009:

- Enterprises looking at saving money while leveraging newer technologies such as VoIP, Open Source VoIP, and applications
- Opportunity: dynamic market changes, consolidation, and lost jobs leads to new opportunities, new business and the beginning of new products, services, and innovative ideas

Many of these new opportunities will disrupt traditional leaders. Will it be automobiles? Fuel? Laptops? Phones? Internet? Video mail? Military? I could go on, but I will be looking for the most disruptive items as I can write about in the upcoming months.

My next blog series will be about business telephones - desktop phones, IP phones, Mobile phones, softphones and how applications are changing the way phones will be provisioned for use and how they are used over the next 5 years. All my information is personally gathered, it is not from customers of my commercial position or purchased from any analyst firms. Pure IMHO, 1st run primary Twitter and Facebook-based research and is all new material.

Hope to see you again soon! I commit to not waiting so long to publish a new blog post!

For the Asterisk Community

We have a new initiative that has been under way for a few weeks now. It will appear in more detail soon on both this and the Digium blog. The series of events will be a nice lift for the Asterisk Community. As in any project, we have to weigh priorities as we have so many items on our plates. A Digium day is like no other in my long career. Yes, I make typical decisions for products, features, roadmaps, people, etc. But, having a community that broadens Asterisk's reach - now that is both a challenge and a huge part of Digium heritage and culture.

Stay tuned.

Open Source Download - Buy or Not?
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We like the folks who do (buy something)

We like the folks who don't (buy anything)

We like the folks who say they will and then decide they won't

But the folks we like the most, and we know you'll think we're right, are the folks who say they usually don't, but today they think they might!

- - - -

What would the downloader possibly buy today?

1. TDM gateway boards

2. G.729 Licenses

3. Voice Prompts

4. Speech to text channels

5. Text to speech channels

6. Support

7. Pre-loaded software on a hardware appliance platform

8. Training and certification

9. Commercial software license

10. Consulting

So, happy downloading:

Free Source Code - www.asterisk.org

Free Distribution - www.asterisknow.org

Free IP PBX, not open - www.switchvox.com/sv?page=free_edition_faq

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Stop by and learn more about us at 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.

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:
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{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.