I wondering if Cisco found this as a surprise? I have installed this IP PBX for many companies and have used Cisco SIP Phones. With this news and award it would not be a surprise if Cisco purchased the software and took it off the market as open source.
InfoWorld 2008 Technology of the Year Awards: Best IP PBX Asterisk 1.4
A complete IP PBX released as open source under the GNU Public License, Asterisk is built to run on commodity hardware, providing considerable cost savings when compared with commercial alternatives, and it leverages the open source community for additional testing, bug fixes, and feature development. Plus, Asterisk is available in many different forms, via GUI-simplified and support-backed packaged solutions such as Trixbox and AsteriskNOW or as raw source code, depending on your needs. FULL STORY ...
Larry Chaffin is the CEO/chairman and founder of Pluto Networks, a consulting company specializing in VoIP, WLAN and security. Pluto is a channel partner for Cisco, Qualys, Riverbed, Guardianedge, TriGeo and Linksys.
Larry is an accomplished author; co-authoring Managing Cisco Secure Networks, Skype Me, Practical VOIP Security, Configuring Check Point NGX VPN-1/Firewall-1, Configuring Juniper Networks NetScreen & SSG Firewalls, Essential Computer Security: Everyone's Guide to Email, Internet, and Wireless Security, How to Cheat at Microsoft Vista Administration, Microsoft Vista for IT Security Professionals, Asterisk Hacking, 2008 VoIP and Video Conferencing, Infosecurity 2008 Threat Analysis and author of Building a VOIP Network with Nortel's MS5100, along with co-authoring/ghost writing eleven other technology books for VIOP, WLAN, security and optical technologies.
Larry has more than 29 vendor certifications from companies such as Nortel, Cisco Avaya, Juniper, PMI, isc2, Microsoft, IBM, VMware and HP. Larry has been a principal architect around the world in 22 countries for many Fortune 100 companies designing VoIP, security, wireless and optical networks. Larry is currently working on a follow up to Building a VoIP network with Nortel's MCS 5100 Book as well as new books on Cisco Telepresence Networks, Practical VoIP case studies and WAN Acceleration with Riverbed.
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Awards do not equal revenue
and the customers who install this open source platform probably aren't big enough for Cisco to worry about. From what I have seen Astrix is mainly deployed by SOHOs while Cisco Call Manager is sold to the Fortune 1000.
A typical Cisco reply
Why does Cisco always have to put dumb replys to stories that are just short and to the point?
re: Cisco buying Asterisk
Wouldn't the GPL protect Asterisk from being waylaid by someone like Cisco? Asterisk is not so much a product as it is a "telephony O/S". There are many variants out there, each with their own user/developer community, some larger than others.
Asterisk does pose a threat to the likes of Cisco, but will continue to proliferate within the SMB space, although I am seeing some GOV/EDs taking a serious look....
The SMB marketplace is very fractured, with so many VAR's, Resellers, Integrators, Consultants, etc out there. The traditional Tier 1's have nothing to offer these folks because the barriers to entry are significant.
Cisco would be the right
Cisco would be the right buyer to pick up for Asterisk. As Cisco through Linksys does not have a large amount of SMB in EMEA for example, Asterisk may give to Cisco the right product for this market segment.
However removing the "open source" label will be a significant disaster for the industry but will give a lot of money to Mark (Digium boss and Asterisk's father).
Open-source project for rent!