I was brainwashed by Open Source

LAST WEEK, when writing about the Patton SIPxNano, I said that the Via server "also includes a professionally-supported version of Asterisk from Pingtel."

I was wrong. There's no Asterisk code in the Patten device, but I blame brainwashing for my mistake.

When I hear "Open Source PBX", my knee jerk reaction is to think the A-word. Pingtel's SIPxchange software is an open source PBX solution, but it has no code from A-word. After all, when you say Linux, there's twenty different flavours of Linux, but they all have some core commonality.

Instead, Pingtel's sipX code is described by the company as a second generation solution; it can be downloaded from SIPfoundry over at www.sipxpbx.org. Pingtel's VP of Marketing, Martin Steinmann and I have exchanged several e-mails on the subject of my brain misfire and seemed to have a little sympathy for my faux pas.

"It is absolutely true that Asterisk has had its share of media coverage to create that perception," said Steinmann. "In a way that is a pity, since the trend to open source in enterprise IT is much broader than that." Steinmann said the Pingtel/SIPfoundry solution is better since sipX was designed later than Asterisk and after it had already become clear that SIP would be the winning protocol. "Therefore, we were able to build a system that is truly SIP, robust and scalable and without the compromises necessary to accommodate all kinds of legacy signaling protocols," he said.

The sipX code is showing up in more than just the Patton SIPxNano. Pingtel recently won a contract to convert all of Amazon.com's IP PBxes to Pingtel's Sipxchange's Enterprise Communication server. Same fundamental code base and functionality scaled up for big enterprise installations or scaled down to run on a VIA Nano server.

Still, there's a certain amount of shared opportunity with Pingtel and Asterisk. Both are open source PBX solutions. Both code bases have been demonstrated to scale from small scale appliances all the way up to enterprise scale solutions. Right now, Pingtel would appear to have a lead in the deployment race since the company is currently shipping a SMB solution - the Patton VIA appliance - and has the big customer win with Amazon.com. Pingtel would argue that its code is more mature and appropriate for an enterprise solution.

Perhaps the more interesting challenge is seeing if Pingtel can counter the Asterisk PR machine and the enthusiastic community of users, developers, and VARs that now support the code. There's about two million downloads or so of the code and Asterisk 1.4 is anticipated to roll out in November. The race doesn't always go to the swift, or something like that and Digium will probably start spending some more of its recently won venture money on building more momentum. µ