Digium, Inc. is a privately held communications technology company based in Huntsville, Alabama. In 1999, Digium's founder Mark Spencer created Asterisk, the open source software project that can be used to turn a personal computer into a communications server or Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system. Today, Digium's core business lines include Switchvox, the Asterisk-based VoIP business phone system, Digium IP phones, and Asterisk telephony software and hardware products. Digium continues to make Asterisk available to the global development community for free at Asterisk.org.
Digium, Inc. sells all of its products and services directly to businesses and consumers. It also offers its business-to-business communications products, including Digium Cloud Services, through a worldwide network of resellers.
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History
In 1999, while a Computer Engineering student at Auburn University, Mark Spencer founded Linux Support Services (LSS). The high cost of buying a business phone system for LSS spurred him to use Linux and his programming skills to develop his own solution. He named it Asterisk, after the programming wildcard symbol and the "star" phone key. It enabled phone calls over the Internet, providing an alternative to hardware-dependent PBX systems at a cost as much as 80% less.
Forbes Magazine characterized Asterisk's impact as "wreaking havoc on the multibillion-dollar phone equipment business," and "disrupting the $7 billion market for office telecom (PBX) switches" by enabling individuals and organizations to innovate in what was previously a vendor-locked marketplace. Asterisk-based business phone systems, like Digium's Switchvox, were the first of a new generation of VoIP-based communications solutions that would emerge to compete with the telecomm giants like Cisco and Avaya. Reflecting the company's shift away from Linux support to applications and enhancements for Asterisk and the development of new communications solutions, Linux Support Services was renamed Digium in 2001.
Asterisk was released as open source by Spencer; today, the Asterisk Open-Source Software (OSS), the Asterisk community and forum, as well as an annual conference and expo, are all sponsored and maintained by Digium. Developers around the world continue to use Asterisk to create custom IP PBX systems, VoIP gateways, conference servers and other solutions for small and large organizations. They have also continued to enhance it, adding hundreds of features. It is estimated that Asterisk is currently being used by developers in 170 countries, is running on approximately 1MM servers, and is the foundation of communications systems for the majority of Fortune 500 companies.
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Products and Services
Digium products and services fall into four main categories:
Switchvox Business Phone Systems
Digium offers Switchvox, a Unified Communications System powered by Asterisk, either as an on-premises solution or a cloud-based PBX solution.
Switchvox Mobile extends Switchvox services to employees' mobile phones.
Digium Cloud Services include Switchvox Cloud service and SIP Trunking. SIP Trunking replaces a business' traditional, or legacy, telco connection by providing voice connectivity to an ITSP via an existing data connection (internet).
Custom Telephony Hardware and Software for Asterisk
Asterisk Commercial Licensing and Support - An Asterisk commercial license provides legal means of using and modifying Asterisk for a product without making the resulting code open source.
Asterisk Support - Digium offers support services for developers and organizations deploying Asterisk.
Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) - Digium's Respoke is a cloud-based web communications platform providing a simplified way for developers to add secure video and chat features to mobile apps or websites.
IP Phones - Digium manufactures and markets VoIP phones designed for Asterisk-based phone systems, including Switchvox as well as other Asterisk-based systems.
VoIP Gateways - Digium manufactures and markets appliances that allow conversion of a legacy telephony connection (E1/T1/PRI) to a VoIP connection using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
Telephony Interface Cards - Digium produces interface cards to connect IP PBX, IVR, VoIP Gateway or custom telephony solutions to the public telephone network. Digital, Analog and Hybrid cards enable connections between Asterisk and analog equipment (faxes, phones, lines); T1, E1, J1 and ISDN-BRI interfaces; and mixed mode environments. Voice Compression cards enhance the capabilities of Asterisk in VoIP and hybrid environments by digitally compressing voice signals.
Asterisk Add-On Products - Digium markets proprietary enhancements for Asterisk, including Fax for Asterisk, IVR Prompts, the Digium Phone Module for Asterisk License, G.729 and Echo Cancellation.
Channel Partner Program
Digium's tiered program authorizes channel partners to sell Digium Cloud Services, the Switchvox Unified Communications system, or custom Asterisk communications solutions.
Asterisk Training and Certification Program
Digium offers paid introductory and advanced Asterisk training courses and two Asterisk professional certifications (dCAA and dCAP).
Asterisk Open Source Project & Community
Asterisk provides developers with a free, open source framework that simplifies the process of building communications systems. Digium has continued to sponsor Asterisk as an open source project since 1999, distributing it under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 license.
In turn, this community of developers - now spanning 170 countries - continues to improve Asterisk and enhance its capabilities.
AstriCon
Since 2004, Digium has hosted the official Asterisk user conference and expo called AstriCon. Geared to a wide audience of Asterisk developers, systems integrators, service providers, users and entrepreneurs, conference sessions focus on trends in Asterisk use, new applications and technical topics.
Asterisk Forum
The Forum enables Asterisk developers around the world to communicate, including answering each other's support questions.
AsteriskNOW
AsteriskNOW combines into one download the fundamental tools that application developers need to create custom telephony solutions with Asterisk: a complete Linux distribution with Asterisk, the DAHDI driver framework and an administrative GUI.
Certifications
Digium, Inc. is ISO-9001:2008 certified by NSF International Strategic Registrations.
Awards and recognition
- 2016 Communications Solutions Product of the Year (Switchvox)
- 2016 Unified Communications Product of the Year (Switchvox Cloud)
- 2016 WebRTC Product of the Year (Respoke)
- 2016 Internet Telephony Product of the Year (Digium IP Phones)
- 2016 CRN 5-Star Partner Program
- 2016 CRN Women of the Channel award (Leslie Conway, Vice President of Global Marketing)
- 2015 CRN Channel Chief award (Steve Harvey, VP Worldwide Sales)
- 2011 Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement Award
- 2008 eWeek Channel Insider Product of the Year, VoIP (Digium Asterisk Business Edition)
- 2008 eWeek Top 100 Most Influential People in IT (Mark Spencer)
- 2008 InfoWorld Best of Open Source Software (BOSSIE) Award
- 2006 Inc.com 30 Under 30 Coolest Entrepreneurs (Mark Spencer, #17)
External links
- http://www.digium.com/ - Digium, Inc
- http://www.asterisk.org - Asterisk
- http://respoke.io - Respoke
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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