Smith On VoIP

Digium’s Press Conference Had Some Thought Provoking Details

During today’s press conference there were more then a few thought provoking details about the potential future of Digium. I would agree with Marc Spencer in that I think the executive changes that were made are excellent, and that this is the most exciting time in Digium’s history. From a business standpoint, Digium is a gem. They are profitable, have millions in venture funding (if needed), and now a strong executive management team that is has experience taking young companies to the next level.

What Does The Future Hold For Digium?

Until recently, Digium’s business model has revolved around the sale of pci cards and technical support of Asterisk. With last fall’s release of the Asterisk Developer’s Kit and more recently, Asterisk now, all roads point to Digium growing into an (IP) PBX vendor in the nature of Avaya, 3Com, Cisco, Mitel, etc. While the solution they provide to channel partners may always have the flexibility of an open source solution (such as the ability to add, subtract, change features and functionality, the ability to build bolt-on’s to the solution, and even the white label aspect - a powered by Asterisk moniker) much of what was said (during the press conference) and has been done recently, shows that Digium wants to deliver Asterisk to the non-technical channel partner and end user.

Points to consider:

• Venture capital and public company backing. You can compete pretty well with legacy PBX vendors with $13.5 Million to spend on marketing, advertising, and promotion.
• Executive management team that has taken a company from emerging stages to becoming a publicly trade company.
• Focus on “Enterprise” and Small Medium solutions that require little technical knowledge
• Building a channel of integrators, phone installers, and IP PBX var’s that deliver solutions on the local level.
• Asterisk Developer Kit evolves into “canned phone system” appliance that is sold through a channel complete or as a framework for VAR’s to roll their own.
• Additional announcements about less technical phone system coming soon
• Brand name and brand awareness worldwide
• Marc Spencer is one of the smartest technology creators EVER.

Digium The Phone System Solution Provider?

Not that any of this is new as I have written about this emerging model numerous times, but when you add it all up, it is a logical evoolution. All of the pieces are in place for Digium to complete on a large scale, in every market with the big-boy phone system providers. PCI cards and technical support are small fries, compared to selling complete phone systems and supporting them. If they managed to be “very profitable” doing that there is little doubt they won’t do the same selling the entire solution.

It will be exciting to see how their model, being that they are an open-source company, evolves and how the community, channel, and business partners fit into this new emerging model. In most cases, the traditional phone system provides have had very closed solutions which caused greater restriction in solutions. I some-how envision two or three solutions being delivered through their channels, which should prove to be a huge selling point with many intergrators and phone systems VAR’s.

My hats off to Marc and the rest of Digium. They have done an amazing job to date. Here’s hoping for more success over the next few years!

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