Asterisk Topics - Asterisk News, Views, Blog & Discussion.

As most of you probably already know, over the last nine years Asterisk has emerged as world’s leading open source telephony engine and tool kit, however most people simply know it as an open source phone system.

In order to promote greater visibility as to the myriad of things that people can (and have) done with Asterisk, VoIP Supply has partnered with Digium, the creators of Asterisk, to launch the “101 Things You Can Do With Asterisk Contest”

Here are the contest details:

1. One contributor (at random) to the list of 101 things, will win a $1,500 VoIP Supply shopping spree sponsored by Digium and VoIP Supply.
2. To be eligible for the contest, one must simply post a use or application of Asterisk that they themselves (or someone they know) has actually done.
3. The contest is open until 101 unique uses or applications have been documented.

This is a pretty neat little contest, so if you are interested in writing about this or contributing, please stop head on over there!

Wanna Make Money in VoIP? Buy Sangoma

Sangoma Technologies Corporation (TSXV: STC) a leading provider of connectivity hardware and software products for voice, WANs and Internet infrastructure, today released highlights of its unaudited results for the financial quarter ended March 31, 2007.

Both sales and net earnings represent new all time records for the company.

Q3 2006-2007 Financials

• Sales - $2.24 million (68% Increase)
• Net income before provision for income taxes - $0.89 million (69% Increase)
• Net earnings - $0.58 million (56% Increase)
• Net earnings per share - $0.021 (54% Increase)

The company finished the quarter ended March 31, 2007 with working capital of $4.72 million, compared to $2.83 million at June 30, 2006, an increase of 67%.

“Sangoma’s revenue grew 24% in Q3 relative to our previous record Q2 numbers as our new products gain traction in the marketplace,” says Sangoma Technologies President and CEO, David Mandelstam. “It is gratifying to see that we are increasingly meeting customer needs, resulting in our long-standing growth trend where we are growing faster than the market itself.”

NTT Software Corp. will develop its own version of Asterisk Business Edition for use in its ProgOffice PBX product

In the first of moves by Digium’s new executive management staff, the company has signed a licensing deal with Japanese Telco NTT. Under the terms of the deal, NTT Software Corp. will develop its own version of Asterisk Business Edition for use in its ProgOffice PBX product for Japanese small and medium-sized businesses. According to Jim Webster, Digium’s Director of Software Technologies the deal,

“…will help raise the knowledge and awareness of Asterisk in Japan in that Asterisk will now be seen as something that’s ready for mainstream use…”

It will be interesting to see how deals like this further shape the go to market strategy for Digium. This deal, on the surface is much more of an OEM type agreement than a channel agreement. I, for one, had always felt strongly that Digium’s only way to grow was through a formal channel of resellers and integrators who had the ability to sell a “canned” or appliance based device. With moves like this one with NTT, you have to wonder if Digium is also looking towards OEM licensing deals with major telco’s as another way to grow their business.

Talkathon.org, best known for producing free conference/podcast services to various communities including charitable organizations like Kiva.org and open source communities like phpBB and linux has announced that they will be having a weekly Asterisk users conference and podcast. The conferences, starting today, will attempt to tackle all aspects of Asterisk, including applications, services and development.

Anyone can join the conference on a regular phone by following instructions given at http://x2z.eu. It is also possible to connect Asterisk directly to the conference server via SIP.

For more information, or to register for the Asterisk users conference, visit Talkathon.org.