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On Wednesday,
Digium, founder of the open-source Asterisk
IP-PBX will announce its first round of VC funding – receiving $13.8 million from Matrix Partners. Matrix Partners was JBoss' initial investor, also an open-source solution - a Java application server. Matrix's expertise in open source was one of the deciding factors for deciding to invest in Digium. Asterisk is now at 1 million Asterisk users compared to 1/2 million at the beginning of the year - a phenomenal growth spurt and with over 1,000 downloads per day.
The funding will help the continued growth of Digium and Asterisk, especially in launching new offerings for the enterprise communications market, ranging from small to large businesses. Profitable since 2002, Digium has experienced 100% growth in each of the last several years.
"We believe Digium has the potential to become one of our most successful open source companies, as every company in the world relies on telephony and the use of PBXs in order to run their businesses,” said David Skok, a general partner at Matrix Partners and JBoss board member. "As companies continue to be attracted to the cost savings and powerful new capabilities of Voice over IP, the opportunity for Digium becomes massive. Digium is definitely in a position to become the next big open source company, behind Red Hat, JBoss and MySQL. Their current revenues, profitability, and growth rates are extraordinary.”
Update: 11:44am WednesdayI just had one other important thought with regards to this VC funding. Mark Spencer, the founder of the open-source Asterisk movement and Digium wasn't beholden to anyone else due to any sort of major financial investment. While I am pretty certain that Adtran gave some funding to Digium, I don't think it was on the scale of this multi-million dollar funding. I hope that Mark, the Asterisk guru and "telecom rebel extraordinaire" won't have to change himself or the company too much to accomodate Matrix Partners' wishes. Let's hope Matrix Partners has a pretty much "hands off" policy, except to help grow Digium and Asterisk.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on August 8th, 2006 with no comments.
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After the
news that Zultsys was going out of business, only to hear that
they are being resurrected, word from two sources is that a well-known
IP-PBX company may be on its last legs. I don't want to disclose who it is at this point without some further investigation. No point causing a company harm from what is just rumor at this point, but I will keep you posted.
This got me thinking though. What happened to the days when there were dozens of PBX manufacturers? Sure there are still many around, but many are hurting, and some have gone belly-up, such as Comdial, Praxon, and others. You have inexpensive open-source IP-PBXs such as as
Pingtel and
Asterisk that are just as feature-rich as the "big boys" (Nortel, Toshiba, Avaya, Cisco) at 1/8th the cost or less. How can a large company with hundreds of employees and with vastly larger overhead compete with a small nimble company like
Digium, the founder of the Asterisk open-source movement?
Will open-source communications systems inevitably kill the major PBX manufacturers? Hard to say, but open-source sure didn't do SCO UNIX any favors when the "free" Linux O/S came on the scene. The days of proprietary communications are over, which also means more competition and smaller margins. In telecom it's SIP that is opening the doors for small start-ups to innovate without being blocked by proprietary and predatory tactics. Only the nimble with the best features, best value, best marketing, and best support will survive the long haul.
On a related note I recently discovered
PostPath, a
Microsoft Exchange Server alternative, which is the first to implement Exchange network protocols on a Linux email server and the first to let you use your existing Outlook clients with no disruption. According to this
article, benefits of selecting the PostPath Server include avoiding vendor lock-in, saving money, increasing performance by 5x, improving resilience, and increasing flexibility and innovation. According to the article, by moving to PostPath you can slash software, storage and infrastructure costs by 75%. We have Exchange Server at TMC and have experienced our share of Exchange Server failures resulting in email loss. Disaster recovery for Exchange Server is just that - a disaster. We've had some outages that took 2 days to entirely fix. Postpath, while not open-source or free, is a Linux-based solution that is less expensive and they claim more reliable with quicker disaster recovery.
Now if only I could have a 100% open-source, IP-PBX, with Exchange Server functionality, built-in web server, Jabber/IM server, collaboration capabilities, mobile phone email synching (e.g. Blackberry), and just about any other communications method, all on a turn-key platform with each component interoperating/integrating - then life would be good.
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Digium today
announced a major upgrade of its Asterisk Business Edition, the professional-grade version of Asterisk. Called Asterisk Business Edition B.1, the upgraded release includes enhanced security and scalability provided by Ranch Network's Asterisk security code, speech recognition capabilities through the LumenVox Speech Engine, text-to-speech applications through the Cepstral Text-to-Speech System and a customized Linux distribution to simplify installation. Asterisk Business Edition B.1 will also feature built-in support for
Intel Dialogic Products and
Aculab Prosody X cards.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on June 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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FierceVoIP has released a list of their Top 15 VoIP Companies of 2006, which FierceVoIP Editor Dan Rosenbaum calls the Fierce 15.
Dan writes: "I have a particular belief that the companies that will succeed most brilliantly are the ones that succeed in building an ecosystem around themselves, and that brilliant applications are at the forefront of today's VoIP industry…Some of these companies you've heard of. Some, I bet, you haven't. But you should. These are the best of breed for 2006."
It's an interesting list, which includes Empirix, SunRocket, Jajah, Iotum, Digium, GrandCentral, and several other notable players in the VoIP space. Some in the list I agree with, some I don't. It's a pretty short list, so I'm sure narrowing it down to just 15 was tough and as a result some good VoIP players will inevitably be left out in the cold.
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Have you noticed how
http://www.asteriskathome.com points to
http://www.asterisknow.org/, a site that promotes AsteriskNOW, a new software distribution that includes a customized version of Linux, Asterisk, the Asterisk GUI, and all other software needed for an Asterisk system. AsteriskNOW is promoted as an easy to install turnkey installation when it says, "AsteriskNOW includes all the Linux components necessary to run, debug and build Asterisk, and only those components,
so installation is easy." Doesn't this turnkey Asterisk sounds eerily similar to the old Asterisk@Home project which was
recently renamed to trixbox?
The site www.asteriskathome.com is offering a
competing product to trixbox (
Asterisk@Home), which is
now owned by Fonality. Fonality is a company that sells PBXtra and is a competitor to Digium..
www.asterisknow.org, where asteriskathome.com redirects to, is registered to you guessed it -- Digium Inc. which now offers an Asterisk distro that "aims" to be as easy to install as trixbox/Asterisk@home. Quite a nice rivalry, eh? While I applaud Digium for adding a GUI and making AsteriskNOW an easy to install Asterisk distro, why take a domain name associated with a competing Asterisk distro and competing company? My first thoughts on this were:
Why even go there? Is Digium’s goal to rank highly on the search engines for the search term “asterisk at home” or “asterisk@home” so that they direct people to their competing solution?. Seems a bit childish.
Personally, I doubt most Asterisk fans aren’t already aware that Asterisk@Home is now trixbox, so I doubt Digium will get any search engine referral traffic even if they did rank highly for the keywords. I’ve been to Digium’s offices and I know they are filled with many smart Linux people, so surely they know they won’t get any SEO benefit from registering
www.asteriskathome.com. So is the motive simply
because they could do it or should we view this as a childish prank?
When
I visited Digium's offices I heard a group of employees playing some Linux shoot-em up game and shouting (gotta love that corporate environment).
Now, I can only picture a group of Linux gurus huddled around, as they clicked the Submit button to register this asteriskathome.com domain followed by a few chuckles. But then it occurred to me that perhaps Digium wasn't involved with this at all. I checked the whois directory and saw that the domain was registered to Mitchel Constantin from a company called Dirty Clothing. I googled his name and see that he is indeed on Asterisk's mailing lists and seems very involved with the community - however he doesn't appear to be a Digium employee.
After some further investigation I discovered he works for or wrote the Asterisk application called
Snap, that includes a dialer and call popup application for Asterisk with Outlook integration and a Firefox plugin. Actually, this seems like a pretty cool app that I'll have to check out.
Obviously, Mitchel is a huge Digium fan, the company that founded the Asterisk movement, and which apparently has spawned at least one 'domain turf battle' by a devoted (zealous?) Digium fan.
Lame to take this domain & direct it to Digium's website? Or pretty funny?
You make the call.
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Comments on this Entry:
(roderickm on
Dec 5, 2006 6:54 PM)
Asterisk is a trademark of Digium. The project formerly known as Asterisk@Home was renamed Trixbox. How is it childish to protect legitimate trademarks?
(John Ferrel on
Dec 6, 2006 9:39 AM)
>>Asterisk is a trademark of Digium. The project formerly known as Asterisk@Home was renamed Trixbox. How is it childish to protect legitimate trademarks?
A valid assertion, except there are plenty of cases of people using the name "Asterisk" within their domain name. Asterisk VoIP Blog - http://asteriskvoip.blogspot.com/ is one example.
Even the infamous Apple Blog (http://theappleblog.com) uses the trademarked Apple in its domain name. I'm sure there are hundreds of other cases.
I don't believe Digium sued Asterisk@Home to try and get them to reliquish the rights to the Asterisk@Home name. In fact, I remember reading Tom's blog post stating that Digium had given Asterisk@Home permission to use the name.
Trixbox 1.0 replaces Asterisk@Home
Here's 2 important snippets:
[snip 1]
"I can speculate that my pal Mark Spencer over at Digium sent Asterisk@Home a "cease & desist letter" to protect his trademark. Although, I'm not sure if Mark even has a trademark on the brand "Asterisk". I'll have to shoot him off an email and ask. But if he does, then you can't blame him if he is indeed trying to protect his brand. If you don't vigorously protect your brand and it becomes watered down and used by everyone, then you can lose your rights to the trademark. This whole point may be moot since I believe you can't trademark GPL open-source code projects. Where's a trademark lawyer when you need one?"
[snip 2]
"Update: I received an email from Ward Mundy stating that Digium did give permission to use the Asterisk@Home name. He stated "Asterisk@Home was suitable for home and business use. A lot of customers were apparently put off by the @Home moniker." I suppose I can see the @Home moniker hurting its "business-class" image."
Taking the asteriskathome.com domain does seem to be a bit infantile, especially since the Asterisk@Home project no longer exists. It's now Trixbox. Of course I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of old webpages that talk about Asterisk@Home that aren't updated. So any Asterisk newbies that see Asterisk@Home mention might be tempted to google it and come across Digium's website instead. A form of stealth marketing I suppose.
Still, like Tom said, the chances of asteriskathome.com getting any search engine traffic is small. Currently this domain is not even on the first page of Google. In fact, http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/ is #1 and it points to the trixbox Asterisk distribution.
I won't classify this tactic "lame", especially since it doesn't appear to be done by a direct Digium employee. It is somewhat amusing to us in the Asterisk community to see two different factions play some relatively friendly war games. Just as long as they don't go hacking each other's websites, I'm cool with it.
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on January 1st, 1970 with no comments.
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Signate is a provider of Asterisk-based solutions that apparently is going through major problems. I've been getting lots of emails asking if I know what is going on with them, so I did some research. Word through the grapevine is that they are about to go belly-up - but this is still unconfirmed. Their former CEO left and when I tried to reach their new CEO Paul Mahler and I got an automated voice message telling me to email Paul@paulmahler.com. It also mentioned that if I left a voicemail he would never get it. His work email also bounces back so I am guessing he is no longer with the company.
I then tried to reach an operator and was immediately put into voicemail. I talked with Joe Fabiano, one of our sales reps, and Joe emailed my pal Garrett Smith (
SmithonVoIP) since Garrett's
VoIPSupply.com company is a distributor of Signate. If anyone would know, a distributor would. Well, Garrett did some research of his sources and he told Joe, "According to my sources they are toast."
Is this a case of the Asterisk ecosystem growing too fast, with too many players trying to get into the Asterisk game? With free Asterisk offerings such as AsteriskNOW, trixbox, and inexpensive solutions from Fonality, Digium, and other providers - some hosted - some CPE, it will be interesting to see who survives and who doesn't. Considering Asterisk is an open-source solution, adding enough value and margin to Asterisk is a tricky business to remain profitable, especially when you consider that open-source advocates tend be very thrifty (cheap?) when it comes to paying for software.
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Mark Spencer, founder of the
Asterisk movement, lead off the conference call by saying, "Today is one of the most exciting days in the history of the company." Them's some mighty big words! Mark explained that this came about while searching for a COO and VP of Business Development and they were then approached with something even more exciting.
Mark explained why Digium hired a new CEO and why Mark changed his role within Digium. Mark, "When you start a company and you're just one person, you have to do everything yourself and that is the history of Asterisk got started really - because I needed my own phone system and they were too expensive to go out and buy one. But as you grow, you have to start delegate stuff out. The easiest thing to delegate out in the beginning is to delegate stuff you're bad at and don't enjoy doing. Delegating stuff you're good at but don't enjoy doing. Then there is stuff you enjoy doing but are still bad at doing. Lastly and the most difficult part is delegating away stuff that is very enjoyable to you and that you have a propensity for doing well. Digium has reached a size that that was a decision I had to make." (
Note: I'm typing this during the call, so the exact quotes may be a bit off)
Mark added, "While hopefully I've done a (
cough - nervousness? I think its modesty since he didn't want to toot his own horn) fairly reasonable job getting the company to this level, I felt that the part that is more interesting to me and that part where I can bring the most value to the community, employees, and the customers, was focusing on the technology and strategic vision of the company in the long run. When I had the opportunity to bring on someone who has an incredible operational background and whom I have a relationship of trust for the past 7 years, it was simply a very easy decision to make and to make this transition happen."
Bill Gates (Windows)
role and title famously shifted and now Mark Spencer's (Linux) role has shifted. This is all part of the
1st law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) and keeping the universe in balance. That's my theory anyway.
Mark Spencer is to
Bill Gates was Neuman was to Jerry Seinfeld, what the Red Sox are the Yankees. It all makes perfect sense now. If Mark didn't change titles, the universe would explode.
Mark explained that Danny Windham "has been a board member since 2000 and actually has been with the company longer than any other employee has been. He was able to come on and be the CEO of the company and allow me to be able to focus on the community and the customers and the technology of the company in a much more focused way."
ADTRAN explained that they have a 7 year relationship with Digium, with a significant investment in Digium but a minority investment. Since I want to get this news up and let everyone listen to the conference call themselves, I'm going to post the entire conference call here as a podcast. I may update this post in a bit with some more interesting quotes.
Here's an MP3 podcast of the conference call:
Conference Call with Digium about new CEO
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Mark Spencer, the current CEO of Digium has been replaced by Danny J. Windham, President, Chief Operating Officer and director of ADTRAN for the CEO title. I’ve visited both companies in Huntville, Alabama and learned a lot about the history between Digium and ADTRAN. Mark Spencer actually used to work for ADTRAN (pre-Asterisk) and ADTRAN helped provide Mark & Digium with some "seed" money to get Asterisk/Digium off the ground. Hat tip to Alec Saunders for the tip.
The ironic thing is that I actually just emailed Digium’s PR firm (which was forwarded to Mark Spencer and Bill Miller) yesterday to ask about their trademark policy which is up for renewal every January 30th. I wanted to know if any major or even minor changes were going to be made which would affect the Asterisk ecosystem. I didn’t hear anything back and usually they’re pretty good at getting back to me quickly. Maybe I should have suspected something was up?
As of 9:15am today, I haven’t heard back. Perhaps this news about Danny becoming the new CEO has something to do with it. What exactly Mark’s new role or title will be I’m not sure. Maybe he’ll go back to what he loves best - coding Asterisk and working with the Asterisk community. I’ll contact Digium and find out more. Stay tuned!
Update - Just read that Mark will remain a Chairman and CTO of the company.
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