The Future of Digium Revealed?

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Digium’s release of the Asterisk Developers Kit, an Asterisk based IP PBX appliance, got me thinking about the future of Digium and the Asterisk developer community. Until last week, it seemed that Digium was content giving away software to make money on hardware and support. Now it seems that Digium, flush with over $13 Million in Venture Capitial, might be changing their strategy.

For quite sometime I have been a proponent of appliance based IP PBX systems that look like phone systems, not a PC or a server. My reasoning is that the second phase of business VoIP adopters want to buy a box, not software. They want a box that looks like a phone system (whatever that is…), not a PC or a Server. Businesses can identify with an appliance. The Asterisk Developers Kit gives businesses exactly what they want. A low-cost, highly powerful, easy to use appliance.

With cash, press, a new appliance (that businesses will buy), and a robust developer community, it is only a matter of time before Digium goes from a business model similar to Sun, to that of a Nortel, 3Com, or Avaya. Rather then giving away software and making money on hardware and support, I expect that Digium will soon become a IP PBX system manufacturer and will build a channel of VAR’s and Integrators to sell and service a solution based off of the Asterisk Developers Kit (that will include much of the work of the Asterisk Developer Community). I do not expect this solution to be open, I expect it to be closed, requiring numerous certifications to sell and service it.

While some may think it is far fethced for a open source company like Digium to abandon its roots, a company can only grow so large on the sale of PCI cards. In order for Digium to continue to grow, to expand, and to give a generous return to investors they need a solution that scales. An IP PBX appliance scales, it scales big time.

What do you think about the Asterisk Developers Kit?