Growing MSP Embraces Ubuntu, Asterisk IP PBX
Generally speaking, most traditional VARs still seem focused on Microsoft environments. But Travis Austin (pictured), founder of ReziTech, sees the world from a slightly different view. He’s building a managed services business that leverages Ubuntu Linux and Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Here’s why.
First, a little background: ReziTech‘s Austin took center stage at this week’s Autotask Community Live conference in Miami, which attracted more than 500 VARs and MSPs. For those who aren’t familiar with Autotask, the company offers SaaS-based applications (like Professional Services Automation for services management and VARStreet for product sourcing).
Austin spent most of the conference describing one of his company projects, called MSPintegrations. But The VAR Guy asked Austin to pull back the curtain and describe ReziTech’s internal IT standards. Chief among them are Ubuntu (the Linux distribution from Canonical) and Asterisk (the open source IP PBX most closely associated with Digium).
Want more details? Check out these two FastChat videos with Austin…
Ubuntu for Managed Services Providers
The video covers:
- 0:oo – About ReziTech, a company history in the managed services market
- 0:25 – How and why Rezitech leverages Ubuntu Linux
- 1:21 – Will ReziTech promote Ubuntu to end-customers?
- 2:05 – More information
- 2:31 – Conclusion
Time to Dial Asterisk
Austin and ReziTech also leverage Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Austin describes how in this video:
The video covers:
- 0:00 – How ReziTech uses Asterisk
- 0:50 – Are there hosting opportunities for Asterisk in the channel?
- 1:41 – How will Asterisk potentially evolve as a phone solution and revenue opportunity for ReziTech?
- 2:15 – More information
- 2:40 – Conclusion
Reality Check
Will more VARs and MSPs follow ReziTech’s lead, and embrace both Ubuntu and Asterisk?
For the most part, it sounds like most of the IT channel marches forward with Windows and traditional VoIP platforms. But The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50 survey shows growing momentum for open source in the IT channel. And the latest survey results — due in May 2010 — are expected to show even more open source momentum within the VAR community.
Still, ReziTech is the rare MSP that seems to be building revenue-generating services around both Ubuntu and Asterisk.
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A hard time getting customers to use Ubuntu on the desktop? Fascinating…. its a competitive advantage to help lock their customers into their services because competing businesses won’t know how to deal with the backend Ubuntu deployments they manage for customers. That’s a very interesting talking point. Is there anything ReziTech is doing that couldn’t be accomplished with Debian? The description of the invisible infrastructure deployment scenario is the role I’ve come to expect Debian to play.
I’m assuming ReziTech isn’t a customer of Canonical’s landscape or support services.
Not sure about the business model that requires you to hide the infrastructure from the client. We instituted a nuke the windows policy last year when they get “the junk”. We now have over 70 desktops that are on Ubuntu rather than windoze. Strange, none of them seem to be “junked” up with malware or viruses and no one missed their windoze. The “junk” is a user term. They call up and ask can you get the junk off my computer it keeps popping up on my screen.
I like the products he is using. We use Ubuntu and Asterisk also. All of our international customers are an extension off our Asterisk box. It keeps the long distance cost down but they don’t hesitate to call.
lw9474:
Are you contracting with Canonical for Landscape or support services?
What in particular do you like about Ubuntu that Debian doesn’t provide?
-jef