Digium Launches Asterisk Exchange
At this week’s AsteriskWorld conference, Digium will officially launched Asterisk Exchange — an online marketplace that allows customers and channel partners to piece together solutions involving Asterisk (the open source IP PBX). If successful, Asterisk Exchange could expand the ecosystem for alternative VoIP and unified communication solutions. Here’s the scoop, including a FastChat video with Digium CEO Danny Windham.
Let’s rewind a bit. Digium first announced plans for Asterisk Exchange in October 2009 at Astricon. The VAR Guy was immediately intrigued. The reason: Asterisk — much like Linux before it — is emerging as an open source platform for software companies, hardware providers and service providers. But customers and VARs sometimes struggled to track down Asterisk-related gear that they can piece together into network solutions.
The Asterisk Exchange aims to solve that challenge, while also growing the ecosystem for Asterisk-related products.
Sounds great. But online exchanges also involve some key challenges. Open source trackers will recall Red Hat’s attempt to build a compelling software exchange. But that effort was hit and miss, since many customers and VARs instead reached out directly to ISVs and hardware providers.
FastChat Video
What makes Asterisk Exchange different? Digium CEO Danny Windham offers some perspectives in this FastChat video:
The video covers:
0:00 Introduction
0:15 Overview of Asterisk Exchange
0:40 Who will participate in Asterisk Exchange?
1:13 Where channel partners fit in
1:53 How can partners and customers get involved?
2:20 How to list your products on Asterisk Exchange
2:45 How the Asterisk Exchange site is organized
3:00 How visitors will rate Asterisk Exchange products
3:41 Conclusion
The Bigger Picture
Asterisk Exchange is part of a broader Web initiative at Digium. The company back in October 2009 announced plans to launch Asterisk Exchange and Asterisk Forge while also overhauling Asterisk.org.
Digium CTO Mark Spencer described the strategy in this video from Astricon:
