Asterisk open source PBX now in a box

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 25 March 2007 09:26

Business IT - Technology

Digium, developer of the Asterisk open source IP PBX software, has launched the Asterisk Appliance, PBX hardware running Asterisk and able to serve up to 50 users.

The Asterisk Appliance includes embedded Asterisk Business Edition telephony software, Digium hardware, the Digium-developed Asterisk graphical user interface and documentation. According to Digium, it can be easily configured by customers or resellers and supports VoIP and traditional analogue phones.

The Appliance was foreshadowed last September when Digium launched  an Asterisk Appliance Developer Kit to give services providers, OEMs, resellers and integrators "all of the components necessary to build a turn-key telephony platform based on the upcoming Asterisk telephony appliance."

It has been available since then to Digium partners, including Internet telephony service providers, resellers, integrators and OEMs, since the fourth quarter of 2006 to allow them to begin working on solutions based on the appliance.

Asterisk creator and Digium founder and CTO, Mark Spencer, said "We've designed the Asterisk Appliance specifically for smaller companies and remote offices by packing it with features their users want, but in a very easy to use and manage solution. This is a milestone for Asterisk and for Digium as we make open source a meaningful option to small businesses"

The unit is claimed to be a full-featured PBX with interactive voice response (IVR), voicemail, conferencing and automatic call distribution (ACD) software. It ships with a built-in router, five ethernet ports (1 WAN, 4 LAN) and eight analogue ports supporting a mix of foreign exchange station (FXS) and foreign exchange office (FXO) interfaces to standard telephones. Price for single units, in the US is $US995.