If you hadn’t heard of Asterisk, an open source software that replaces traditional business phone systems, don’t feel bad. Not many people have. Big business phone system companies like it that way.

What Asterisk does is replace the expensive, bulky, often outdated and limited business phone systems (PBX systems made by Cisco, Nortel and other giants). Asterisk is able to offer compatible functionality at a minimum, and more functionality by using the features users have added, than any of the phone systems on the market. It does all of this for hundreds, not thousands, of dollars.

Asterisk was developed by Mark Spencer in 1999 on a shoestring budget. The software is free to download, or you can purchase equipment with fully tested versions customized to your needs (including user hacks) for minimal money. since it was created the software has been downloaded an astonishing 500,000 or more times, and is in use at many big-name companies already.

The company welcomes innovation on their product in true open source form. They love seeing how programmers improve or change what Asterisk can offer a company, and credit the open source movement for making Asterisk the versatile alternative to traditional PBX systems that it has become. “You couldn’t set out to build a system like this. No one company could do it all. When you open source, people just keep improving things,” says Spencer.

Asterisk is based on the Apache engine. This is the same engine that powers we servers around the world, and is another in the growing family of free open source software alternatives. By basing the program on an industry standard, it makes open source innovation that much easier to achieve.

From the Forbes analysis of the product we see Cisco’s take: “In an internal study last summer Cisco identified 100 corporate customers making big use of Asterisk. Open-source Internet phones, the document said, will force Cisco to excel in “reliability, productivity, enhancements, features, vendor reputation, service [and] support.” Cost was unlikely to be Cisco’s selling point.” Interestingly, Cisco does not seem to be resisting the innovation, but instead seems to see it as a chance to grow, or to approach it like IBM approached Linux when it became a real challenge – embrace it.
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Entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 10:34 pm under Technology.

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