University dumps Cisco VoIP for open-source Asterisk

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Tim O'Reilly" <tim () oreilly com>
Date: January 2, 2007 11:22:02 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] University dumps Cisco VoIP for open-source Asterisk

O'Reilly dumped our proprietary PBX for asterisk about a year ago,  
and happily chose "free" over three proposals costing hundreds of  
thousands of dollars for proprietary VoIP PBX alternatives.  Since  
then, we've enjoyed asterisk's enormous flexibility.  If there was  
ever a sweet spot for open source, it's VoIP, and I'm surprised that  
more people haven't been paying attention to Asterisk and Freeswitch  
(another open source pbx.)  There are huge cost savings possible, and  
the flexibility and control that comes with both open source and VoIP  
really make it possible to make your voice communications part of  
your digital toolbox, rather than some anachronistic backwater.

I never listen to voice mail on my phone any more.  It's really sweet  
to get it as an email attachment, and to be able to forward it as  
easily as any other email.  And programming phone applications is  
finally starting to get out of the stone age.

If your org isn't using asterisk, it should be.  I'll also point out  
that the implementation is relatively painless.  And if you have  
trouble, there are good books available, including ones from yours  
truly :-)

Meanwhile, this message reminds me to make the same offer I've made  
for past O'Reilly conferences. The first five IP readers to respond  
can get a free pass to the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference to  
be held February 27 to March 1, 2007 at the San Francisco Airport  
Marriott.

The conference doesn't focus exclusively on Asterisk, but there's a  
lot of Asterisk-related content, including a keynote from Mark  
Spencer, the founder of Digium and the creator of Asterisk, as well  
as some great sessions on asterisk and VoIP techniques, including the  
launch of a new framework for programming Asterisk on Ruby.  Another  
very cool session at the conference is a workshop entitled Calls in  
the Utility Computing Cloud - Experiments in on demand ultra scalable  
telephony Using Amazon EC2 and S3  - This is freeswitch and Asterisk  
both - This is really exciting stuff. They are using Ec2 to create on  
demand scalable phone networks - something that was not possible  
before. You basically had to over-specify and pray your network never  
reached capacity.

For more information about the conference, see  http:// 
conferences.oreillynet.com/etel2007/

The actual program is at http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/50/ 
schedule.html  (For some reason, Mark Spencer's keynote isn't listed,  
but the conference chair reassures me that he will be there.)

To get one of the free passes, send email to Kathleen Bruno -  
kbruno () oreilly com -- and tell her about the message on IP.  Kathleen  
is on holiday; back in the office Thursday Jan 4, so don't expect an  
immediate reply.

Also, here's a 15% discount code you can use if you aren't lucky  
enough to get one of the free passes: etel07tim

For more details on the conference, see http:// 
conferences.oreilly.com/etel.

To register using the IP discount, send email to Kathleen Bruno,  
kbruno at oreilly.com.  She's still on holiday till tomorrow, but  
will get back to you as soon as possible to let you know if you were  
one of the first responders.

_________________________________________
Tim O'Reilly, Founder & CEO, O'Reilly Media,
1005 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol, CA 95472
+1-707-827-7150 http://tim.oreilly.com






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