Well last week marked the end of Astricon 2009 where a myriad of VoIP and Open Source companies came together to showcase new products, new solutions, and make big (and sometimes small) announcements. One of my favorites and more notable announcements was between Digium/Asterisk and IBM.

You can read some specifics here, but in short IBM has brought Asterisk into its Smart Market program. IBM’s Smart Market is a marketplace for applications  designed or tweaked to operate on IBM’s hardware, specifically the IBM Smart Cube. It’s kinda like the Apple App Store, take the iPhone for example which is a “ready to rock” computer with a whole slew (70,000+) of applications designed to work perfectly (supposedly) on the iPhone… all purchased via the App Store. The IBM Smart Market and the Smart Cube hardware is much like the same.

Organizations with a tendency towards Open Source or just plain ole cost savings can now simply purchase their Smart Cube from IBM, download a customized version of Asterisk designed to be managed via the Smart Desk management dashboard, and BAM… with some configuration you’ve got yourself an IP PBX.  Additionally… here’s my favorite part, support is handled directly by IBM! Anyone who has worked with IBM knows that their support is one of IBM’s strong points and exactly why I’m extremely excited to see IBM extending that support to Asterisk. Support is one of those areas which I think has stifled some of Asterisk’s growth primarily because the quality of support provided by the myriad of different Asterisk re-sellers and even Digium itself has been so varied in its quality that its quite hard to truly define a guaranteed level of support when it comes to Asterisk. Of course I’m rather biased but I like to think my company has some of the best Asterisk support around, but that just can’t be said about everyone :-)

Now all this product launch hoopla isn’t what really interests me… well yes IBM is providing Asterisk support = awesome…. and yes Asterisk is tweaked to be managed via the Smart Cube dashboard = actually kinda big…. but what I’m particularly excited about is the continued traction Asterisk is gaining within the world of telephony. Acceptance by a computing titan like IBM is just one more badge on it’s sleeve of awesomeness. I myself am thrilled how common the term “Asterisk” has become in almost every discussion pertaining to telephony and IP PBX solutions. There are still some haters out there but those who criticize the technology haven’t really taken the time to fully understand it, while those who have, become its greatest advocates.

I used to be surprised when people said they were actually familiar with Asterisk, now it seems to be one of the first things someone will Google when buying an IP PBX. Now I say this… but I also say it knowing that it applies primarily to the SMB market in which Asterisk has seen the largest amount of growth… but my only interest in the SMB market is its use as a case study to prove to larger enterprises that Asterisk based solutions fit business of any size and application and should always be evaluated right alongside the big players. We’re not quite there yet, 1000+ Asterisk deployments still remain few and far between, but as Digium and Asterisk start partnering with companies like IBM, and when companies like IBM are willing to stake their reputation on supporting Open Source software like Asterisk, I think it validates Asterisk’s future trajectory as being a respected IP PBX solution amongst not only SMB’s but organizations of any size.

But enough with my soap boxing… you probably would like to know about pricing.
There are two options for purchasing Asterisk for the Smart Cube:

• $2,000 for 20 simultaneous calls.
• $4,000 for 40 simultaneous calls.

Check it out!

By Aaron Rosenthal