Digium (promoter of Asterisk, the open source IP PBX) has launched the Switchvox 400 series. The new unified communications platform supports up to 600 users per system — meaning that Digium is attempting to march from the small business phone market into mid-market accounts. The VAR Guy’s big question: How does this latest on-premises push compare to Digium’s Switchvox Cloud solution, which launched earlier this year?

Let’s start with today’s news. According to a prepared statement from Switchvox, the 400 series (models 450 and 470) “allow Switchvox to more than double the number of concurrent calls supported on the prior models. In addition to improved capacity and performance, the size of the appliances has been reduced by 46 percent, the weight by 37 percent, and the power consumption by 22 percent, producing environmentally-friendly solutions.”

The Switchvox 450 supports up to 500 users in a single platform and costs $9,850 USD. The Switchvox 470 supports up to 600 users in a single platform and costs $12,975 USD.

Digium claims the Switchvox 400 products are “complete business phone systems” that support:

It sounds like Digium is training its channel partners to sell and support the Switchvox 400 series. 

Meanwhile, Digium earlier this year partnered with an Atlanta-based company to launch a Switchvox cloud for end-customers. The VAR Guy doesn’t have a feel for how that effort has been going. But it’s clear Digium is striving to balance on-premises and cloud opportunities while pushing beyond small businesses into mid-market accounts.