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[August 26, 2008]

Digium Headquarters Tour

Originally posted on VoIP & Gadgets Blog, here: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/asterisk/digium-headquarters-tour.asp.

During my tour of Digium's (News - Alert) headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama I snapped quite a few photos that I thought I'd share. I'll just share a few here, but if you want to see them all, go check out the online photo album I created specifically for Digium:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/photos/digium/

Be sure to check my other photo albums as well:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/photos/

The new Digium headquarters is very impressive. I couldn't help but be in awe of what Mark Spencer (News - Alert) created. Obviously, there is money to be made in open source, and seeing the fruits of Mark's and his team's labor in this state-of-the-art building was proof of that. I can't help but reminisce back to my November 2001 column titled "In Search Of A Linux-Based PBX" where I listed several "young" Linux-based PBX solutions. One such solution I discovered was Asterisk (News - Alert). Check out what I wrote back in November 2001 to see how far Asterisk has come:

As my search continued, I stumbled upon a company called Asterisk. According to their Web site, Asterisk is an open source PBX (News - Alert) and general telephony toolkit that runs on the Linux operating system. Asterisk provides a set of APIs that essentially make it a type of middleware between Internet and telephony channels like VoIP, voice over frame relay, etc., and telephony and Internet applications like voice mail, phone directories, call parking, and so forth. Asterisk supports a flexible and extensible channel API, allowing any number of real hardware or software interfaces. It is purported to support ISDN, PRI, T1, and POTS through an Adtran Atlas. The Quicknet Internet PhoneJack and Quicknet Internet LineJack are both supported. Plans to support Lucent-based Winmodems also in the works. This product is not a turnkey out-of-the-box Linux-based PBX, and its still under development, but it does have several telephony functions working, such as call bridging, call transfer, call parking, and rudimentary voice mail. Check them out.

There was no Digium telephony cards back then. It ran on Adtran hardware and some Quicknet PhoneJack cards. Who knew that Asterisk would explode and become the dominant Linux-based IP-PBX solution?

Well, there is no better proof on how far Asterisk and Digium has come than to see their brand new building. Check out these photos:

Front side of the building

Digium front lobby - Nice cafe to get your morning caffeine fix (coffee) before you head off to do some Asterisk coding. wink

This is the Asterisk logo in the center f Digium's headquarters on the 1st floor taken from the 2nd or 3rd floor above. Doesn't this remind you of the Star Trek Enterprise's warp core? (Seen below from a side view. Couldn't find a top-view image which would be more similar)

Story continues below ↓

I count 6 fans and at least 4 heat sinks. Now that is some serious coolage! This might be the AA350 I snapped but not sure.

This is Rotary Dial Phone with an Ethernet Jack making it the world's only rotary IP phone! It was in one of the Digium offices I passed by.

Digium has many Collaboration Rooms. This is just one of them. Note the (almost) floor-to-ceiling whiteboard for plenty of collaboration space.

Just a shot of the hallway with the cabling system overhead. Hmm, I only see like 7 cables. What sort of magical networking is Digium doing that they only need 7 cables in a company of 150 people?

Digium has several Collaboration Rooms. Note the orange chairs to match the orange Asterisk logo.

Don't zoom in on the whiteboard. It contains top secret Digium information on how they plan on taking over the open source telephony world. Oh wait, they're already doing that.

Can't call yourself a software company without a foosball gaming table! Though I did notice Digium's vending machines only sold Dr. Pepper and not Diet Coke. Sacrilege I say!

Digium's training class room. Each student gets their own PC to install & configure Asterisk.

Digium and TMC having dinner
Left-to-right clockwise: Steve Sokol, John Todd, Russell Bryant, Dave Rodriguez (News - Alert) (TMC), Greg Galitzine (TMC), Jane Brooks, Tom Keating (TMC), Bill Miller

There are several other pictures in the Digium photo album. Go check them out.

Tags: Alabama, Asterisk, Bill Miller, Dave Rodriguez, Digium, Greg Galitzine, Huntsville, IP-PBX, Jane Brooks, John Todd, linux, Mark Spencer, Russell Bryant, Steve Sokol, Tom Keating, voip