Digium Founder & CTO Discusses Transition to Asterisk as a Platform for Communications

September 19, 2008
By Greg Galitzine, Group Editorial Director

Mark Spencer, the founder and CTO of Digium (News - Alert), was the featured keynote speaker at the recently concluded AsterConference, which took place in Kuala Lumpur. I had the opportunity to ask Mark a few questions about his speech and the state of Asterisk (News - Alert) in Southeast Asia.
 
GG: What were you doing in Kuala Lumpur last week?
MS: I gave a keynote at the annual AsterConference, which was in Malaysia this year. AsterConference, a regional conference that is dedicated to Asterisk, has gone on for four years and rotates to other Asian countries. Countries that were in attendance included Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The first day consisted of keynotes and then the conference broke into two tracks, business and technical. The second day consisted of technical training.
 
GG: What did you speak about at the event?
MS: My keynote, “The Future of Telecommunications,” focused on the transition of Asterisk as a PBX (News - Alert) to Asterisk as a platform for other communications. I talked about the creativity of users around the world and how Asterisk has changed the paradigm from the old TDM technology to Asterisk as a telephony platform. I encouraged the attendees at AsterConference to explore Asterisk in Asia.
 
GG: How prevalent is Asterisk in that market (Malaysia)?
MS: Clearly Asterisk is making significant inroads in Malaysia. One thing I've noticed in my travels is that while Asterisk is big both in the U.S. and abroad, it seems to be catching on in large enterprises abroad more rapidly than in the U.S. Malaysia had clear examples of this, even from a sampling of just a few skilled resellers.
 
GG: Who is using Asterisk-based solutions in Southeast Asia?
MS: We visited Asterisk installations at two companies in the Petronas Towers (probably the most famous building in Malaysia). Petrofac is an enormous petroleum company, which is using Asterisk not only within their corporate facilities, but to connect oil rigs over satellite links. We toured the Al Jazeera English studio in the building, which also is running on Asterisk through a different reseller. Finally, we also learned about an installation at one of the most modern hospitals in Malaysia, in which Asterisk connects the hospital phone system and radio systems to allow EMS technicians in the field to talk to emergency doctors even before they leave the initial scene in order to start providing treatment as soon as possible! It's great to see such interesting and diverse applications!
 
Spencer and many of his Digium team will be in attendance at next week’s Astricon, which takes place in Glendale, AZ from September 23–25.
 
INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO West 2008 — the biggest and most comprehensive IP communications event of the year — concluded Thursday in Los Angeles, California. Thousands of attendees flocked to the event for three valuable days of exhibits, conferences and networking opportunities. Mark your calendar now for ITEXPO East 2009, February 2-4, 2009, in sunny Miami, Florida.
 
Read archived editions of Show Daily eNewsletters from ITEXPO (News - Alert) West 2008 here. See you in February!

Greg Galitzine is editorial director for TMC’s (News - Alert) IP Communications suite of products, including TMCnet.com. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Mae Kowalke

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