AsteriskNow Rocks Open Source Telecom World

Solution providers searching "Mark Spencer" on YouTube will find not only a bizarre clip about a homemade cake and humorous downloads regarding British department store Marks & Spencer, but a sure-fire way to increase sales in the lucrative IP PBX and VoIP market courtesy of Asterisk open-source PBX creator Mark Spencer.

Hot Factor

• VARs can get their feet wet with AsteriskNow in a couple of minutes • Asterisk provides double-digit services margins. • Traditional PBX: $150,000 to $200, 000. Asterisk System: $10,000.

Spencer, founder, chairman and CTO of Asterisk provider Digium, Huntsville, Ala., is a onetime Linux service provider who has taken to YouTube to promote AsteriskNow, a new GUI-powered version of the popular open-source PBX aimed at attracting a new wave of solution providers. In the 4-minute, 13-second clip, Spencer takes viewers through the quick and easy AsteriskNow install. That's no small matter. What the new single-disk GUI install does is dramatically lower the cost of entry for solution providers looking to get into the open-source telecom game.

Before AsteriskNow, solution providers would have to add some high-priced, open-source technical talent with Asterisk expertise to their staff at a cost of $100,000 to $150,000, Spencer said. Now solution providers can get their feet wet in a couple of minutes and begin using the software in SMB solutions without a deep technical dive.

For Spencer, the new software marks a stepped-up march of his vision to bring the open-source PBX and VoIP system to the masses. He said 2006 was all about making progress with VARs and customers in the early adopter stage. "2007 is going to be where we start making inroads into the early majority," he said. "We've now got a way to get VARs into this much faster. You don't have to be afraid of having to load Linux or Asterisk or anything like that. We're delivering that with all the power of open source behind it."

That power has already attracted considerable attention in the telecom world. Sam Houston State University, an early adopter, has transitioned from Cisco CallManager IP PBXes and a Nortel Meridian PBX to Asterisk at a huge cost savings. Solution providers say Asterisk is reshaping the competitive landscape, providing double-digit services margins for them and bigger bang for the buck for clients.

Last summer SIPBox, a Tinley Park, Ill., Digium partner, won a contract for the Echo Joint Agreement Project, a Chicago-area school district organization initiative, with a bid of $79,010, nearly $55,000 below the $133,934 bid by a Cisco reseller and a whopping $82,413 less than an AT&T direct sales bid. "They are extremely happy with the system," said SIPBox CEO Chad Agate, a former Cisco solution provider. "They love the flexibility and the price point."

"Information wants to be free because it is so cheap to distribute," Spencer said. "And it wants to be expensive because it can provide so much value. That is really the case in telecom. Asterisk provides stunning savings."

Stunning indeed. A traditional PBX from a big brand provider to support several thousand phones can cost as much as $150,000 to $200,000 vs. as little as $10,000 for an Asterisk system, according to Spencer. "Think about how much margin there is in the middle for a reseller," he said. "And most customers want an integrator to come in and support them."

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