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Digium(R) Preps Award-Winning Open Source AsteriskNOW(TM) Software Appliance for Full ReleaseSAN JOSE, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Digium(R), Inc., the Asterisk(R) company, today announced the final beta of its AsteriskNOW(TM) software appliance. New AsteriskNOW beta 5 features, as well as extensive product testing and feedback from the Asterisk community, make this the final beta leading up to Q2 availability of AsteriskNOW 1.0. Customers can deploy AsteriskNOW in minutes to start using Asterisk, the most popular open source telephone system in the world, in their organizations. Introduced last quarter by Digium, the creator and primary developer of Asterisk, AsteriskNOW includes all the software customers need to install and configure a phone system that offers the advanced features found in expensive proprietary products. AsteriskNOW is free and can run on customers' existing servers. An easy-to-read AsteriskNOW screen helps customers who do not have an Internet voice (VoIP) service provider choose a Digium Asterisk Certified Service Provider or add another that they select. Mark Spencer, creator of Asterisk and founder and chief technology officer of Digium, commented: "Our objective with AsteriskNOW is to bring the power and flexibility of Asterisk to a far broader group of customers. Companies that want a real alternative to phone systems that cost thousands of dollars can download and use AsteriskNOW--without any knowledge of Linux or programming skills. Extensive contributions from the worldwide Asterisk community and Digium's strong focus on the product help make AsteriskNOW the highest quality business-class, telephony-focused, open source Asterisk software appliance available." Mark Spencer will demo an AsteriskNOW installation in the Digium World Theatre at VON on Wednesday, March 21 at 11:00 a.m. Copies of the new book AsteriskNOW for Dummies are also available at the conference. Those not attending VON can view a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONOxNJquatk) of Spencer walking users through the easy installation. AsteriskNOW was awarded "Best of Show" for Innovation at Internet Telephony Expo in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in January of this year. Attendees at this week's VON can also see the AsteriskNOW demos in Digium's booth on a regularly scheduled basis. Highlights of AsteriskNOW beta 5 include: -- Asterisk software, a customized Linux distribution and the AsteriskGUI(TM) graphical user interface needed to run AsteriskNOW. -- Installation using a setup wizard, making AsteriskNOW easy to configure and deploy. -- An expanded group of Digium Asterisk Certified Service Providers--IAXtel, New Global Telecom, Simple Signal, VoicePulse and Voila IP--that ensure interoperability between their VoIP services and AsteriskNOW. Customers may also select their own VoIP service provider. -- The ability to manage multiple dial plans to allow organizations to tailor telephony features for different functional groups. -- Direct inward dial features that have been added to the setup wizard to more easily let administrators define rules for handling calls placed to direct lines. -- Music on hold per queue options that allow the organization to have different recorded messages or music played for callers waiting for customer service, for example, than for sales. -- GUI error handling designed to guide users when they have keyed an extension or option that does not exist. -- Support for alphanumeric extensions to give system administrators more flexibility in assigning phone number extensions. -- Context-sensitive advanced tooltips that help administrators are now fully functional. -- Internet Explorer 6 and 7 browser support, in addition to Firefox. -- New drivers to support the latest hardware within the Linux distribution. -- Additional updates based on significant product quality testing. Availability AsteriskNOW is licensed under the open source general public license (GPL) and is free to download and use. The software will be available at http://www.asterisknow.org/ beginning on Friday, March 23. About Asterisk Code for Asterisk(R), originally written by Mark Spencer of Digium(R), Inc., has been contributed from open source software engineers around the world. Currently boasting over two million users, Asterisk supports a wide range of TDM protocols for the handling and transmission of voice over traditional telephony interfaces, featuring VoIP packet protocols such as SIP and IAX among others. It supports U.S. and European standard signaling types used in business phone systems, allowing it to bridge between next-generation voice-data integrated networks and existing infrastructure. About Digium Digium(R), Inc., the Asterisk(R) company, is the original creator and primary developer of Asterisk, the industry's first open source telephony platform. Digium provides hardware and software products, including AsteriskNOW(TM), the complete open source software appliance; Asterisk Business Edition(TM), the professional-grade version of Asterisk; and Asterisk Appliance(TM) hardware-based telephony solution, to enterprises and telecommunications providers worldwide. Digium also offers a full range of professional services, including consulting, technical support and custom software development. Used in combination with Digium's telephony interface cards, Asterisk offers a strategic, highly cost-effective approach to voice and data transport over IP, TDM, switched and Ethernet architectures. Digium's offerings include VoIP, conferencing, voicemail, legacy PBX, IVR, auto attendant, media servers and gateways, and application servers and gateways. Additional information can be found at www.digium.com. The Digium logo, Digium, Asterisk, Asterisk Business Edition, AsteriskNOW, Asterisk Appliance, AsteriskGUI and the Asterisk logo are trademarks of Digium, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. |
