Nearly a month ago Steve Sokol announced that Digium is finally providing paid support for the Open Source version of the Asterisk software.

Back in March I did not want to comment on this particular news item. I would let the dust settle before commenting.

What implication will this have for the ecosystem around Asterisk?

When this was announced there was a fear that resellers and Asterisk consultants now would loose their revenue. Why should someone buy from a "consultant" when they could simply go to the source?

People still want to buy from their local provider, rather from a faceless company by email or telephone. However, the risk of investing into a open source telephone product has now become very low. If the local consultant for some reason could not deliver - the customer can, in a crisis situation, get full support from Digium - at a reasonable price.

Also from the consultant point of view this is a good thing. It is now possible for them to go on vacation or travel and leave the crisis support to Digium. I am not kidding with this statement. Companies relying on small consultancy shops are always afraid when the consultants go on vacation or do extensive travel.

If we also turn the tables - new users may now try Asterisk based solutions with the knowledge that if everything fails they can get support from Digium. Let's not forget that finding a local Asterisk consultant can be very difficult for people new to this technology. New users are not well versed in the various Asterisk resources on the Internet.

Some time ago Jay Philips stated that the Asterisk retention rate is less than 1% and that The average amount of time a developer plays with Asterisk is less than one week. I do not agree with everything in the article, but it's a good read.

The article points to a very important thing: People quit on Asterisk.

I see it all the time. In one environment I frequent, the Bergen (BSD and) Linux Users Group, people approach me from time to time and tell me how "complex" and "difficult" Asterisk is to set up. Granted that most of the people that approach me want to use Asterisk at home. A very few want to use it at their work place.

By providing paid support from their open source product, Digium is showing potential customers that it is possible to get support. Some of these customers will probably continue to use Digium.

However, I do believe that these customers are less than the customers who will convert to using local consultants. In effect, by providing support Digium will become a income vector in the long run for local Asterisk consultants.

Long term implications

By taking on paid support for the open source edition of their product, Digium shows that they do in fact put enough focus on the open source edition. In the past Digium have gotten criticized for not putting enough resources on the open source edition. With this move they clearly address those critics.

Well done Digium! Everyone wins!