An interesting look on Asterisk Hardware

Asterisk hardware - particularly asterisk cards - have been around and options just keep on growing. Like my previous post here, we'll take a look at CTO Tom Keating of TMC Labs had to say about them:

Let's see -- you have Digium cards, Aculab cards, Dialogic cards, PIKA cards, Rhino, and Sangoma cards that all work on Asterisk-based systems. (You also have ZAPMICRO and OpenVox which are Digium-cloned cards.)

Some cards work more seamlessly and have better driver support than others. For instance, I've heard it is difficult to get Dialogic channel drivers to work on Asterisk. I recall hearing that the Dialogic driver was licensed such that it could only be used with Asterisk Business Edition. In any event, with so much hardware competition for the Asterisk platform, how does this affect Digium, the corporation behind the open source Asterisk movement? A lot of their revenue comes from their hardware business, so with so many choices will this leave Digium "high and dry"?

Tom Keating goes further:

As SmithonVoIP points out, Sangoma's stock has been going like gangbusters when he points out, "Sangoma posted their Q3 earnings today, which showed a 24% increase in revenues over the previous quarter of this year, a 68% year over year increase in sales revenues, a 69% year over year increase in net income, and a 56% year over year increase in Net earnings." Relatedly, Rich Tehrani and I were discussing Sangoma's phenomenal stock growth a few weeks ago and both of us planned on writing about it. I believe Rich has an article planned for Internet Telephony Magazine highlighting Sangoma. Obviously, Sangoma has been riding the "hockey stick curve" of Asterisk, which has been dramatically boosting Sangoma's revenue. (they sell other hardware as well)

Then you have OpenVox, a company based in China offering "Digium-cloned" hardware. They use the same hardware reference design that Digium uses. In fact, they look nearly identical. While they also suffer from the same hardware interrupt issues as Digium hardware, they're 20% cheaper - or more. OpenVox was probably the first Digium clone and I believe is the largest. Similarly, another Chinese-based company, ZAPMICRO is also offering Digium-cloned hardware.

Adding to Tom's review on alternative asterisk hardware, Zapmicro is sold at nearly 40% off in PBXEQ. If this is the case and you would prefer working with Digium-similar asterisk cards, better go for Zapmicro then. Meanwhile, Sangoma is highly favored in the article and if you have the budget for it, it would be a good choice for your asterisk implementation.

You may read Tom's full article on Asterisk hardware options here, and his review on Sangoma VS Digium.