Asterix IP-PBX is an open source, free to download and use IP based telephony server which can be used for your business. Now you will ask why this is free and open source when it can be easily sold for quite a high amount. As a normal user won’t go for Asterix IP-PBX, as he don’t need PBX machines. Well Digium company who developed Asterix makes money by selling hardware and keeping the software free. It is compatible for commonly available telephony hardware and if someone buys hardware developed by Digium it increase their market share.
By providing it free in open source model they promote their hardware, and if you want to buy other hardware you can always buy them from other vendor and use Asterix by customizing for your hardware.
Because Asterix source code is available for free, your business will never stop because you decided to buy some other hardware or you need some customization. You can do whatever you want with you Asterix IP-PBX software and customize it your way.
To Configure Asterix IP-PBX and start working you just need to go through 4 step process.
- You need to pick Telephony hardware, Just select the telephony hardware as per you need and procure it for your usage.
- Select your computer which you want to run as Asterix IP-PBX server, almost any computer in your organization can do it but you might need specific hardware just because you have a large number of users or something like that. If you have a small company any home computer would also work.
- Once you have necessary hardware, install Linux and Asterix IP-PBX software on it. Asterix recommends using Centos but it can run on any flavor of Linux. You probably have to compile Source code if Binary files are not available for your flavor of Linux, but it will take very less time.
- Now as you already have installed Asterix, all you need is to configure it as per you need, You will have to configure system files to connect it through VOIP and PSTN service. Some services and configuration requires specific steps and some are generic but their site have all the help files and tutorials to quickly configure your system.
So if you are a business owner whether small or large and looking for an IP based PBX solution I guess Asterix IP-PBX would be best choice for you.
Posted by: Industry InsiderJon, you frame this question as if it is a chcioe between two models, the software approach and the hardware approach of which you use Avaya as an example. Yet Avaya, like most leading PBX companies is focused on positioning themselves as a software company that is using industry standard servers.The other company in your hardware example is Cisco that really does have an opposing strategy, that of the network. The real chcioe that is emerging is between applications and the network. In more practical terms, who will prevail in the battle between the applications world made up of the Microsoft and Open Source (including Linux and Asterisk)communities along with the manufacturers of servers (HP, IBM, etc.)and the network world largely made up of the Cisco world.
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