Digium Founder Mark Spencer Recounts the History of Open Source Asterisk PBX

Asterisk is an open source private branch exchange (PBX) originally created by Mark Spencer of Digium. A PBX, is a type of phone switch, that allows multiple attached telephones to make calls to one another, and to connect to other telephone services including the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Not totally unlike routers that connect multiple computers to a network.

As the guest speaker at the Triangle Linux User’s Group (TriLUG) in Raleigh, NC on Thursday Mark recounted how he built the open source Asterisk project and the for-profit company Digium. He spoke about the journey from the open source Asterisk project to a company that provides support and services.

Mark got started with Linux early in 1994 Slackware (kernel version 1.09). One of the few in Auburn, AL at the time that knew anything about Linux. After a stint with Adtran (a global provider of communications equipment) he moved out on his own starting a company called Linux Support Services. Mark traded his services for space in the back of a local computer store in Huntsville, AL. He started by building his own computer and eventually built his own phone switch informed by his experience developing GAIM (now Pidgin) among other open source projects.

After explaining his need for capital to his friends at Adtran they offered to invest in his company. Eventually, he realized that he was receiving more interest in Asterisk PBX than for his general Linux consulting services. Then Mark met Jim Dixon who was building open source hardware. Their first project was to build an open source T1 card. This revenue was keeping them afloat but they didn’t receive any contributions and others were just taking their design and manufacturing cards that competed with theirs. Ironically, the same thing has happened with Asterisk though even with amble opportunity he chose not to talk poorly about those who some may say hijacked his work.

Money was tight at Digium until one day a salesman from DeltaCom (a southeastern competitive local exchange carrier) walked in to sell Mark and Jim a T1. After understanding what Mark and Jim had built the salesman offered to help them out gratis. From that point on they started seeing a steady increase in sales, and ended the year with a profit. After living on a meager income for so long Mark was able to grow the business without dipping too deep into the profits.

The folks at Digium soon realized that selling to technical users was good but they knew that they needed to package the product so that it could be easily used by a much broader less technical audience. As a result they improved the Asterisk web administrative interface and took steps to make sure that Asterisk was attractive to a much broader audience.

He attributes their early success contributions from this technical audience with contributions from hundreds of developers and feedback generated by over a million downloads in 2007. They also benefited from the fact that traditional telephone systems were very expensive and features didn’t translate from one system to another. Asterisk was very cost effective, configurable, and capable of VOIP in an industry with no clear leader. Also there was a fundamental shift in the industry from hardware switches to software switches.

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