Smith On VoIP

Digium Further Deepening It’s Strangle-hold On The Asterisk Community

First off, hats off to Steven Sokol and his team. They are truly a class act and the best at what they do. Their Astricon conference and expo is the leading venue for the exchange of ideas/thought and advancement of Asterisk and other open source telephony systems in the VoIP industry.

Now to the Meat of This Deal…

This is an obvious “control” play by Digium. Sokol & Associates offered a wide variety of Asterisk trainings, from introductory to expert level, and from what I have been told, they were the best. Better than the ones offered by Digium (the creators of Asterisk). Their Astricon conference and expo, as I stated above, is the leading venue for open source telephony systems. These are the sort of resources any company would want to control; especially a company that is moving towards offering a appliance type phone system through a two-tier traditional channel model, distancing themselves from their “open roots”.

Digium is going to need top level trainers to educate their VAR’s (especially those who are coming INTO the VoIP space) and a venue for the VAR’s to meet, greet, learn, and exchange. They got both with this acquisition.

While some caution that Digium might cannablize their existing partners and community with a move like this (probably because the comment came from someone who works for a competing trade show), Digium has already started the process with their move away from the PCI card business in favor of the larger more lucrative business phone system marketplace. If I where an ip phone system vendor, I would be worried; Digium is building an ammunitions stock-pile for an imminent arms race.

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