I sat in on one of the Digium |Asterisk sessions this afternoon, and it was a very informative discussion of Asterisk and its benefits for enterprises and contact centers.

 

The presenter, Matthew Nickash, who is simultaneously the Manager of Information Technology at insurance firm Richgels/Schaefer as well as an independent consultant addressed a number of issues including the software's scalability, issues of interoperability, and other issues.

 

He also touched on one of the significant new features of Asterisk that enables multiple systems to communicate with each other, peering transparently to allow for more simple management of multiple Asterisk-based systems. Nickash said that Asterisk allows system administrators to easily interconnect systems and maintain a friendly user interface even in organizations of up to 10,000 people.

 

This capability is also present in the new version of Switchvox SMB 4.0 that was announced earlier today.

 

One of the hallmarks of Asterisk is the community, and Nickash spoke of the community's ability to serve as a wide reaching support network help solve a user's implementation or usage issues, by providing a forum at Asterisk.org.

 

Of course the conversation touched on the cost savings and TCO (total cost of ownership) advantages proffered by Asterisk.

 

The session ended with a lively Q&A period, with a number of questions relating to contact center deployments and the benefits of using an Asterisk based system.