The running joke is that “Germans love David Hasselhoff.” Fact is, it’s only a joke here in the U.S., because Germans really do like his music, which has enjoyed much wider popularity in Europe. What does this have to do with open source? Well apparently Germans love Asterisk (News - Alert)-based communication solutions.

 

Really.

 

Digium (News - Alert), Inc., the Asterisk Company, has announced a partnership with German reseller PBX-network GmbH. PBX-network conceives, installs, integrates, and maintains Asterisk-based solutions and is among the earliest resellers in Germany to sell Digium interface cards. The new partnership brings Digium’s Asterisk-based products, solutions and support to a larger segment of the German market. Products are available online through PBX-network’s PBX-Shop (German Language site). The PBX-Shop also carries products from such German telecom brands like Siemens (News - Alert) and snom.

 

In other recent channel news, Digium recently announced the integration of Switchvox’ (News - Alert) reseller program into the Digium Authorized Reseller program.

 

At the time of the announcement, Digium’s CEO Danny Windham said, “Since launching the enhanced Digium Authorized Reseller program last August, we’ve opened our doors to more than 260 valued partners. We’re proud to include Switchvox partners in the program that we believe is the most channel-friendly in all of open source telephony.”

 

The Switchvox resellers announced in the release included the likes of Arreva Communications of Orange County, California, Mavenspire from the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, Shelton | Johns, a solution partner based near Atlanta, and KME Systems of Southern California.

 

Back to the German angle for a minute, in case you think I was kidding. Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located in southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. Pforzheim is renowned for its picturesque scenery, Black Forest Cake and traditional cuckoo-clocks. It is also world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry, which have earned it the nickname “Goldstadt” or Golden City.

 

Pforzheim is also the contributor of German language prompts to the Asterisk open source IP-based telephony system. Pforzheim’s Director of Internet Technology, Andreas Hurst, wanted to implement a rich functionality based VoIP telephone server to support the people in the municipality’s network. The City selected Digium’s Asterisk and built a hybrid TDM and packet voice PBX solution based on the open source software.

 

I’m telling you, Germans Love Asterisk.