Digium

Simple Power! Reviewing the Digium | Switchvox SMB AA300 IP-PBX

Matthew Nickasch — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:03:05 -0400

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few weeks with the newly-released Switchvox SMB AA300 appliance. In my opinion, if there’s an appliance or SMB IP-PBX to beat, this is the one. For SMBs, there are three incredibly important functions of such an appliance: 1) Ease of installation, Ease of management, Ease of use 2) Flexibility (Phones, Trunking Options, External Connectivity) 3) Advanced Feature Set It’s rare that any system can adequately match all three dimensions, and users typically compromise for a “2 of 3” scenario. Sure, large systems can adapt to an organization’s needs with lots of advanced programming, but most SMBs don’t have a huge telephony budget to allow for such scenarios.

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Vendor Selection Incredibly Important

Matthew Nickasch — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:26:58 -0400

It's a simple fact - without a good vendor or technology provider, any project becomes difficult or nearly impossible. The VoIP, IP-PBX, and Convergence marketplace throughout the years has become highly populated with vendors and solution providers. However, it's important to note: What's important when choosing a vendor? 1. Sustainability

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Digium|Switchvox Breaks the Appliance Barrier

Matthew Nickasch — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:26:22 -0400

There are many reasons to get excited about the future of IP telephony. For me, it's the development and release of new products that will revolutionize the industry. After a recent blog post (Appliances Run Amok) on the emerging market of VoIP & IP-PBX appliances, it appears that Digium, "The Asterisk Company", is pulling ahead of the competition with their recently updated Switchvox appliance line.

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Rebirth of the Branch Office Dialtone

Matthew Nickasch — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:29:05 -0400

When you're managing convergence-based networks across multiple locations, say 50 branch offices linked to two headquarters, you most likely have an ongoing migraine headache. There are always different ways to design such a network, but it's likely that management will want a centralized dialplan, easy office-to-office transfers, etc. People who design and deploy complex, multi-site environments are always looking to unify and simplify their environments while keeping an advanced feature-set available to the users. Sure, you could contract a large vendor to architect a solution, but when you're working on a limited budget, it's hard to justify all of the 'fluff' that's built into such quotes (licensing, design services, huge maintenance contracts, etc).

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Appliances Run Amok!

Matthew Nickasch — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:09:52 -0500

The market for Asterisk-based IP-PBX appliances has grown significantly in the last three years. We're seeing appliance-type systems from all sorts of large and small vendors alike. From Digium's Asterisk Appliance, to the Trixbox Appliance, Fonality's PBXtra, the Switchvox appliance... the list goes on and on. Each device has a custom-developed GUI that usually all ties back to the same Asterisk code on the backend. What these appliances do provide however, is usually a support contract or point-of-contact in case things go horribly wrong.

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RE: Digium adds new warranties to Asterisk IP PBX gear

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:39:26 -0500

Funny, their finally meeting the standard Sangoma has had in place for years! Sangoma leads, Digium follows.

Asterisk plans higher-spec IP PBX, snaps at Cisco's heels

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:20:53 -0500

The open source Asterisk PBX platform has been around for nine years and is snapping at Cisco's heels in the VoIP space. Having enjoyed success as an attractive alternative to pricey IP PBX systems, there is now a spate of commercial vendors that charge for Asterisk professional services, peripherals and software extensions. (Dell reseller Fonality is one of them. See these recent Cisco Subnet blog posts about this vendor: Cisco vs.

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