I am extremely proud to be able to point out that Digium has acquired Switchvox.

Switchvox is an amazing packaged PBX system that is based on Asterisk. A team from Digium did an extensive analysis of the products available in this area, and concluded that the Switchvox package was superior in terms of features as well as ease of use.

Check out the Switchvox features and some screenshots.

Part of the plan is to work with the Switchvox team to take parts of the technology they have developed, and contribute it back to the open source community. As Mark Spencer noted in this interview,

“So as a contrast right, look at what Fonality did. They bought an open source project [trixbox/asterisk@home] and then turned it into a proprietary product. What we are trying to do is go the other way. Take something that started out as a fully proprietary product and to try to leverage that to bring some additional technologies into open source. That’s an interesting angle that I don’t think anyone has covered.”

This is an extremely exciting time for the world of Asterisk. This will have a great impact on our ability to bring the power of Asterisk to the mass market, while also continuing to drive the development of open source telephony. Everyone wins.

More details will be available in the near future as we approach Digium Asterisk World.