Asterisk gets an app store (almost)

Asterisk the open source IP PBX from Digium now gets an app store of sorts.

Asterisk Exchange is a site where vendors can upload product information on products that work with Asterisk. These may be physical products such as telephony cards and phones etc or software.

Software may be end-user software such as soft-phones, Asterisk add-ons that increase functionality or distinct apps that work with some aspect of VoIP.

Some of the sections already available are: -

Asterisk Components
Desktop Tools
Interface Cards
IP Phones
Network Components
Platform Hardware
Solutions

Though not really an app store, Asterisk Exchange allows people to search a single resource for Asterisk related products (much of the information is already available, just harder to find as it's spread on to lots of sites). This can only be a good thing for the large Asterisk community.

Skype for Asterisk Open Beta

Digium have announced their Skype for Asterisk Open Beta which anyone can get a license key (and chan_skype software) for the Asterisk open source IP PBX.

The open beta will close on Aug 7th and the licenses will expire on Aug 31st so if you apply now, that gives about a month's worth of testing,

You need to register on Digium's site to make a purchase which will cost all of $0.

The Skype software and license is available to buy here.

This allows an Asterisk PBX to log into Skype which then acts as a channel driver so calls can be sent through the channel.

3Com launches Asterisk based SMB IP PBX

3Com has launched a $1,600 30-user Asterisk appliance based IP PBX.

It's essentially just a resale of the Asterisk appliance by 3Com, but it's sold and supported by 3Com.

The Asterisk IP PBX is a great piece of software (it's available for download from the Asterisk website), but it's not for the feint hearted. It runs on Linux and is reasonably complex to set-up. Unfortunately documentation is severely lacking (though there are some good books out there from publishers like O'Reilly and various websites like VoIP Info) and often a response is "look in the code".

Having "real" vendors support Asterisk means it will get into the mainstream markets and that's likely to produce some good documentation.

As the 3Com unit is a pre-installed system, configuration is a lot simper and newer versions of Asterisk come with a web based configuration system. Though that takes some of the fun out of hand writing dial-plans - which may change the definition of fun.

New version of Asterisk released

Following security announcements a new version of Asterisk has been released (both for the 1.2 and 1.4 branches). New versions of Zaptel are also available.

Asterisk is an open source PBX which has an incredible wealth of functionality, however it's not for the feint hearted.