It’s one small step for Dell, and another great leap for Asterisk — the open source VoIP phone system. Dell plans to promote Fonality (a major Asterisk proponent) to small business customers seeking IP telephony systems. It’s a landmark development, folks, that benefits Dell in multiple markets (open source, VoIP, unified communications, and managed services). Here’s why.

Like many VoIP telephony companies, Junction Networks uses Asterisk and other open source software to provide its customers with highly customizable VoIP service. Junction has been able to migrate its business model from a conference bridge service provider to a full-fledged telephone services company largely because of the flexibility and lower capital requirements of open source. "We're a completely bootstrapped company," says Mike Oeth, founder and CEO. "We were never locked into a business plan that was sold to investors." He says Junction is successful because it has been able to follow its customers' desires with open source.

This article will present a simple VoIP solution using Asterisk, an open source private branch exchange (PBX) product. It will show you how to install Asterisk, configure it using its LDAP backend, and connect to it using the Ekiga software VoIP client and a Cisco 7900 Series VoIP telephone to make calls.

Chris Lyman is setting in the middle of a perfect storm. As CEO of Fonality, Lyman is building an IP-PBX company that leverages Asterisk (an open source platform) and embraces managed service providers. In other words, Fonality has converged three hot markets (unified communications, open source and managed services) into a single solution.

The open source Asterisk VoIP PBX is now at its 1.6.x release -- it's a number that Asterisk is going to stay at for a long time. That's the message that Kevin Fleming, Director of Software Technologies at Digium and co-maintainer of the Asterisk told attendess at the IT360 conference here in Toronto.

The Asterisk open source VoIP platform is making "pretty substantial headway" in the business market place, says creator Mark Spencer.

Fonality has become the first open-source-based VoIP provider to strike a deal with a Tier 1 computer vendor. Starting this February, customers will be able to purchase fully provisioned Fonality VoIP Phone System servers from computer maker Dell. The Fonality VoIP Phone System will come installed on Optiplex 330 PCs, according to Fonality CEO Chris Lyman. Mr. Lyman thinks this is a big moment for open-source-based technologies:

While turn-key Asterisk solutions are making open source VoIP deployments easier, one of the attractions of open source is the ability to manage your own voice systems.

The VAR Guy has spent considerable time wondering if — or when — Cisco was going to meld its VoIP platforms with Asterisk, the open source IP telephony platform.