The team at Digium cranked out a nice little momentum release this morning, announcing "the one millionth download of Asterisk in 2007". Was that one million downloads in 2007, or the one millionth overall since the inception of the company? Either way it's a huge number, when you consider that Asterisk is a PBX. How many PBX's has Nortel or Avaya sold in the lifetimes of their businesses?
As the release noted, it's been a huge year for Digium, with acquisitions, new executives, partnerships, and awards. Buried in the news was the fact that they have been profitable 24 quarters in a row. A remarkable achievement, but not that surprising to those of us who've been watching the company for the last several years. For example, if you had the opportunity to visit any of the VON conferences over the last 3 or 4 years, you would have seen the Asterisk presence grow from a single small booth to engulfing a full third of the show floor. That growth has been at the expense of the large traditional players, all of whom have seen their share of the VON show floor (and the market) shrink.
Congratulations to my friends at Digium on a banner year. Mark, Bill, Danny, Kevin, Jim, Schuyler and everyone else… you've done an amazing job.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
