Julie Webb
Digium
(256) 428-6203
jwebb@digium.com

Laura Kempke
Schwartz Communications
(781) 684-0770
digium@schwartz-pr.com

Digium® Launches Support Services for Open Source Asterisk®

Corporate sponsor of the most widely-used open source telephony platform introduces subscription-based services tiered to meet the needs of business users

ORLANDO, Fla. (VoiceCon)—March 30, 2009—Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, today announced the general availability of support subscriptions for open source Asterisk. The software, which Digium’s founder and chief technology officer, Mark Spencer, created and released under the open source GNU General Public License (GPL) 10 years ago, is now the world’s most pervasive open source telephony platform. The new Asterisk support services allow organizations of any size to leverage the power of open source Asterisk with the confidence that their system is supported by a world-class support organization. The support subscriptions provide technical support, hardware replacements and substantial discounts on training programs to enable users to take full advantage of the power of the Asterisk platform.

Asterisk is a telephony communications engine and toolkit that developers, VARs and systems integrators use to create custom voice applications and sophisticated VoIP communications solutions tailored to meet specific corporate requirements. Asterisk has long been the software of choice for companies that need highly customized or tightly integrated phone systems as well as those who simply wish to take advantage of the many benefits associated with open source software.

“Digium’s new subscription services give Asterisk users the best of both worlds—they can download and use Asterisk free of charge, as always, and now they can also call on Digium for technical support when needed,” said Spencer. “We think the combo of free and open, with support, is going to appeal to many of our most technical users. The Asterisk community has long been a source of great expertise through online forums, and now we’re supplementing that with the ability to call us, 24x7, for access to our Asterisk experts.”

Danny Windham, CEO of Digium, said: “As Asterisk gains traction within large businesses, demand for professional support is on the rise. Our deep knowledge of open source Asterisk and total commitment to its development makes us ideally suited to offer these new services. Companies that purchase subscriptions will receive support from the most knowledgeable group of Asterisk experts in the industry. We see this offering as a substantial step forward for Asterisk in the enterprise and a valuable service for companies of all sizes.”

Asterisk support subscriptions are bundles of services sold on an annual basis. They include technical and engineering support, consultative services, advance hardware replacement, and discounts on Asterisk training and conference passes. 

Asterisk support subscriptions are available immediately from the Digium webstore at http://store.digium.com and will be available through Digium channel partners in Q2. SMB pricing begins at U.S. $595 per year for support during the subscriber’s business hours (8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday); 24x7 support for an SMB begins at U.S. $1,995 per year. Enterprise subscriptions, including 24x7 support, begin at U.S. $3,995 per year. Pricing includes a defined number of servers supported and cases opened per year. For details, visit www.digium.com.

About Digium
Digium®, Inc., the Asterisk® Company, created, owns and is the innovative force behind Asterisk, the most widely used open source telephony software. Since its founding in 1999, Digium has become the open source alternative to proprietary communication providers, with offerings that cost as much as 80 percent less. Digium offers Asterisk software free to the open source community and offers Asterisk Business Edition and Switchvox IP PBX software to power a broad family of products for small, medium and large businesses. The company’s product line includes a wide range of hardware and software to enable resellers and customers to implement turnkey VoIP systems or to design their own custom telephony solutions. More information is available at www.digium.com.

The Digium logo, Digium, Asterisk, Asterisk Business Edition, AsteriskNOW, Asterisk Appliance, Switchvox and the Asterisk logo are trademarks of Digium, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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