Digium Launches Switchvox Developer Central Community

Digium Inc. is launching an online community designed for developers integrating voice and Web applications through the Switchvox (News - Alert) unified communications solution.

 

The Switchvox Developer Central now extends Digium's (News - Alert) family of voice over IP (VoIP) phone systems for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), which are based on the open source Asterisk telephony platform and designed as a cost-effective, easy to use alternative to expensive PBXs.

 

The community is a Web site for developers to connect and share ideas, as well as solve problems. It includes a wiki containing all documentation for the Switchvox Extend API, a forum for ongoing discussion; a blog for the Digium engineering team to post news to the community; and tools to simplify development and testing.

 

As TMCnet recently reported, the Switchvox SMB 4.0, the most recent version of the Asterisk-based IP PBX (News - Alert), received the “Best of Show Award” at TMC’s INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East 2009 in the  “Most Innovative Product” category.

 

The Switchvox SMB 4.0 includes the new Switchvox Extend API and  allows developers to integrate Switchvox with their business applications using an XML API, IVR management tools and event notifications, according to the company.

 

“The Extend API was one of the most important new capabilities released in Switchvox SMB 4.0 and we want to provide documentation for it in a living format,” said Joshua Stephens, general manager of Digium's San Diego operations, where Switchvox is developed.

 

Included are utilities such as Fire Dialer, the click-to-call extension for Firefox, or the Switchvox Outlook Plugin. Both are examples of the applications that can be created using the Switchvox Extend API. The newly released API is currently in beta, according to the company.

Through the program, an administrator or reseller of a Switchvox system can integrate their phone system with a custom Web application that's completely tailored to their business or an employee's job function.

 

 “If they have the skills to create the web application, integrating with Switchvox will be easy because they can use whatever programming language they're comfortable with, so there's virtually no learning curve or specialized knowledge required,” said Stephens. “If they've worked with any web-based API before, this is going to look really familiar, so they should be able to ramp up quickly.”

 

 Digium's new developer crossroads, http://developers.digium.com, lets users choose their development platform or path'Asterisk (News - Alert).org if they want to contribute directly to the open source software or Switchvox Developer Central if they want to integrate with Switchvox using the Switchvox Extend API, according to the company.