Forbes Magazine: Dial D for Disruption
If you've been following the shakeups caused by open source solutions like Asterisk in the VoIP sector. this Fortune article, Dial D for Disruption, is a must read.
Want to build a phone company for $100? Give Mark Spencer a ring.
In a research park outside the low-key bustle of downtown Huntsville, Ala. Mark Spencer finishes his barbecue and resumes wreaking havoc on the multibillion-dollar phone equipment business.
Spencer is the inventor of Asterisk, a free software program that establishes phone calls over the Internet and handles voicemail, caller ID, teleconferencing and a host of novel features for the phone. With Asterisk loaded onto a computer, a decent-size company can rip out its traditional phone switch, even some of its newfangled Internet telephone gear, and say good-bye to 80% of its telecom equipment costs. Not good news for Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ), Nortel or Avaya (nyse: AV - news - people ).
The article describes at a high level some of the thoughts behind Asterisk, and give some insights into just why it's so popular in the SMB market right now. Asterisk lowers the barrier to entry in providing advanced VoIP services
Technorati Tags: Asterisk, VoIP, disruption
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