iLocus predicts an IPO or acquisition of Digum within 12 months.
Highlights from the article include:
Asterisk Open Source PBX currently downloaded an average of 3000 times per day.
Digium claims to have recently had their 26th consecutive profitable growth quarter.
Digium has shipped over 4 million gateway ports to date.
Digium sales are allocated approximately 52% North America, 25% EMEA, 23% APAC and CALA.
Nearly 45% of all Asterisk downloads these days come from Europe.
According to Digium, there are roughly 3.5 million to 4 million Asterisk servers deployed worldwide.
Digium estimates 110 million end points are connected to Asterisk systems.
Service providers who have built production services on Asterisk accounted for over 6 billion commercial VoIP minutes in 2007, and that volume is expected to double in 2008.
Digium claims 900k IP Phones were added to Asterisk based service provider systems in 2007, excluding the self-managed Asterisk networks of enterprise users.
Digium plans to address scalability issues in the short term.
The remainder of 2008 will certainly not be without drama in the OSS telephony industry. OpenSER, recently re-named Kamailio Project, and FreeSwitch both have aspirations to unseat Asterisk. OpenSER is more widely deployed in the service provider/carrier space, and accounts for more wholesale minute traffic according to iLocus. FreeSwitch have recently aligned themselves with Sangoma, a fierce competitor to Digium in the TDM hardware space.
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@Cory:
Any time a company takes funding, they have three exit strategies:
1. Get bought out
2. Go public
3. Go belly up
I do not think Digium will go the way of number 3, since I believe they have been profitable since day one, but I am unsure that their connectivity hardware business is enough to compel investors for the "big IPO."
They have brought in all of the executive management pieces, but how long will PSTN connectivity be a growth market? I'm not convinced it is. They bought SwitchVox, which was very smart (and it is a great product), but there isn't a ton of IP (intellectual property) within it and investors usually want companies with "proprietary" technologies to safe-guard them from competition, but I still the future for them in SwitchVox...too good of a product not to be.
I can't see this happening in the next year, unless, of course, there is a big new feature release, rapid advancement of their reseller channel (or a nice sized offer).
Interesting to talk about and consider though.
Garret,
Good points, but you are underestimating the value of Switchvox. I am a Digium reseller, and most of my revenue comes from Switchvox. I often sell a T1 card with the systems, but that is just a small part of the picture. I agree that PSTN connectivity will only get smaller, as more business choose SIP trunks to connect to the PSTN.
That said, I still do not know which to cheer for, the IPO or the acquisition. I guess I am leaning toward an IPO so that the Digium and Asterisk brand names do not get diluted. Any comments on which is preferred?
@Tristan:
I think you might have missed what I was saying.
I think Switchvox is an awesome product and that it should be Digium's focus going forward. I do not see Digium having problems being successful in this marketplace and cashing out. I just do not see it happening as quickly as iLocus claims.
I, like you, believe that an IPO is a bigger win for them and all others involved, however, I think Digium still has a ways to go before going public, even if they are ahead of their competitors...