Digium Bets Big On The Channel As Asterisk, Switchvox Take Off

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In a bad economic climate that's left many a networking and infrastructure vendor running for cover, Digium saw a golden opportunity and ran with it.

Betting that tough times would cause a number of IT managers to second-guess their legacy systems when it came time to refresh, Digium has been throwing resources at its channel program throughout 2009 with the expectation that enough partners would see increased end-user interest in both its Asterisk open-source telephony platform and Switchvox unified communications portfolio to fuel substantial growth.

With a retooled channel program and a modest, but fiercely dedicated partner community ready to bleed Digium, the bet's paid off, said the company's channel chief.

"The interest level we were getting with resellers skyrocketed in the face of the economic environment we were in," said Jim Butler, director of worldwide channel sales at Digium. "Resellers are looking for an alternative to the expensive, proprietary systems out there today, and now we can give them the resources to get involved and up to speed faster. Switchvox especially is driving these resellers. It's a toolkit that can do just about anything."

Digium in March 2007 launched its first formal channel program for VoIP products based on Asterisk, for which Digium is the primary developer. At the time, Butler said, it recruited about 200 VARs that were already using Asterisk and developing applications around the platform.

In September 2007 was when Digium really put a stake in the ground, however, announcing that it would acquire Switchvox, an SMB-focused vendor with products based on Digium's Asterisk VoIP software. Its channel gains have been steady ever since, and it has continued to make crucial, business-focused updates to Switchvox AA 300-- a "true turnkey," as it's referred to by CRN Test Center, which named it among 2009's most innovative products.

Digium's also been successful in luring executives away from rivals, especially Adtran, where CEO Danny Windham, Vice President of Worldwide Sales Steven Harvey and Vice President of Marketing Leslie Conway all worked before Digium (The two companies have strong ties, as Adtran was an early investor in Digium and holds an equity interest in the company).

"Digium has always been a channel-focused kind of company, but Switchvox was before mostly direct sales," Butler said. "Much of our growth has therefore come from the resellers."

Partners said they are enjoying the fruits of Digium's channel labors.

"They've embraced the channel as the most logical way to grow Digium and Asterisk, and Digium is now much more similar to a traditional vendor than it had been in the past," said Corey McFadden, managing partner at Infradapt, an Easton, Pa.-based solution provider. "The fact that they've added so many resellers gives customers confidence. They're not a one-man show, and now there's a whole ecosystem of vendors providing support and integration solutions, too. I mean, Asterisk is such a Swiss army knife of a solution. You don't really need anything else."

According to Butler, Digium signed its 500th reseller in October 2009. Most recently, in late November, Digium added a new Affiliate level to its Authorized Reseller Partner Program, to provide what Digium calls "an entry-level tier for resellers who are interested in selling Digium unified communications and IP telephony solutions without a required minimum annual revenue commitment."

It's a crucial step in Digium's channel growth: attracting the dabblers, and the casually interested.

"It's designed to attract those business partners who might not be in a position to make a big investment in Digium, but could grow their business to a spot where they will be," Butler said. "We've recruited about 40 of them in the past two weeks, and reseller applications have already increased about 25 percent. The interest in Digium solutions has risen dramatically. A lot of these guys can't win opportunities in the small-medium space with their legacy vendors, so they're looking for new ways to win deals."

Butler added that Digium is continuing to add to its channel sales staff, especially inside channel account managers and field-based channel account managers in its marketing department. He said that a formalized certification and training program for VARs around Digium deployments is also on the way, likely to launch in the first quarter.

The lack of a more formalized training program, in fact, is one of the only complaints Digium partners interviewed by Channelweb.com levied against the vendor.

"They're good at so many things, but partner training on installation of Switchvox is something they really need," said Armando Garcia, president of Dicar Networks, a San Jose, Calif.-based solution provider. "A one-day Webinar or an actual training program that's Webinar-based, that would be great. Some [customers] have very complex set-ups, and every one wants different functionality for things like voicemail."

NEXT: Barriers To Open-Source VoIP Fall

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