Products are emerging that allow the easy and relatively low cost creation of a variety of SMB PBX and call centre applications based on Open Source (OS). One player in this space eyeing the UK market is Digium.

Resellers and distributors are being recruited across Europe, particularly where the OS model is popular and smiled on by government. A man at the centre of this activity is Steve Harvey, VP Worldwide Sales at Digium, who has just appointed UK-based Foehn, a converged networking, voice and managed IT service provider, as its second ‘Select' reseller in the UK. Digium is the creator and driving force behind Asterisk, the open source voice communications software deployed by more than 4 million servers worldwide to manage VoIP calls. Digium uses a mix of direct/partner, but most new business is channel and distribution.

"Asterisk is an open source VoIP development platform which is attractive in tough economic times," explains Harvey. "How we make our money today is that 65 per cent of revenue is coming from the boards that go in the customers' servers. The Switchbox family is the rest of this but is growing fast. Both growth and margin are from the turnkey solutions.

"The two markets we leverage are different. One is where a customer needs a customised VoIP solution to integrate with business processes. We build a series of boards - interfaces for servers using asterisk business edition. The other market is a true turnkey-oriented market: Lots of customers that don't need customised solutions but want a capable PBX out of the box, so we have a family of products based on Asterisk and our Switchbox solutions are sold through our resellers and integrators. We are just now launching this throughout Europe."

The Switchbox product is a premium featured solution with a GUI, so a customer or small retailer could easily use it, he says. "You don't always want a PC and premium features in a work environment, but, for example, a bunch of layers in a special professional environment would fit well. And the price points are attractive," added Harvey.

Applications use the features of the Switchbox product, so at a desktop level there are a number of ‘mashups' - it integrates with salesforce.com and SugarCRM. Basically any request can be sent out as a service, so the end user or reseller can build a panel on their desktop to allow them to send out to a host. Harvey added: "In a call centre using the Switchbox, the phone will show the number of the call and it can be mapped through Google maps. Looking it up and SugarCRM and salesforce will tell you about that customer's credit checks - it really is a rich experience."

EMEA is proving strong with 40 per cent of overall sales. "I spend a lot of time there," said Harvey. "UK and Germany are particularly strong. We are seeing tremendous growth with partners in France too, and Italy is good. The pattern is that Western Europe is doing more than the Nordics and eastern Europe."

This may be because Open Source in France is particularly active, and in Amsterdam there is government pressure to adopt open source. Of the Foehn appointment in the UK, he says he is looking for more at that level. "We have looked at distribution, but right now we are more interested in the VADs who can help you build market in a region. Reseller recruitment is critical for us. We want people who can methodically develop a reseller channel and help us move the resellers though the training and growth process," added Harvey.