Must Read: No niche for iPad: Why I returned mine

Topic: Networking

Does open source control 18% of the PBX market?

Summary: Has open source taken over the low end of the PBX market, and does it already have nearly one-fifth of the total market?

Dana Blankenhorn

By Dana Blankenhorn for Linux and Open Source |

Following a reader survey and 150 phone calls, an analyst has concluded that open source now has 18% of the PBX market, the vast majority of it Asterisk.

John Malone runs Eastern Management, a Las Vegas-based outfit with a rudimentary Web site claiming it's based in New Jersey. His last prominent role was shilling for what the Bells called "deregulation" in 2001, which turned out to be re-monopolization.

The discrepency on location is explained by the fact Malone's business partner, Robert Saunders, whose title is research director, is located in New Jersey. He may be best known for a release saying an MCI-Qwest merger was a bad idea in 2005.

Malone told No Jitter that his methodology was to first get several hundred surveys completed by the site's readers, to test his questions, and then to send the questions out to about one-tenth of a database with 80,000 industry names on it.

This was followed by calling 51 vendors, calling 100 VARs, and running the data through his own market models.

What he found was a market of 15.88 PBX million lines in which open source had the largest share, followed by Nortel, Cisco and Avaya in that order. The vast majority of open source lines were found in companies with just one or two locations.

Malone's analysis gives Asterisk the most credit for this. He says it has 85% of the open source market, with its Digium affiliate having half the installs. Most of the VARs supporting open source are also small.

I can't tell whether this reflects reality or not, although it sounds quite reasonable. My skepticism has more to do with Eastern's lack of a track record and No Jitter's dedication to the interests of the VOIP market.

So let me just conclude by asking readers whether this reflects what you see in the market? Has open source taken over the low end of the PBX market, and does it already have nearly one-fifth of the total market?

Topics: Networking, Open Source, Telcos, Unified Comms

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

8 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • Open Source PBX study

    Thank you for your writing about our recent Open Source PBX study. Here?s the methodology that was followed. The number of Open Source PBX surveys conducted and completed for the research exceeded 7,000. Then our PBX tracking models developed and refined over 25 years, and Forecaster a unique forecasting system based on detailed quantitative and qualitative methodologies, were applied to the data. The final step was extensive analysis by our consulting experts. The Eastern Management Group performed the Open Source PBX study as part of our Monitor Reports PBX tracking service. For more than 110 consecutive quarters EMG?s Monitor Reports has researched, analyzed and published PBX line and system shipment data for every manufacturer. Our offices are in New Jersey and Tokyo.
    John Malone CEO
    Eastern Management Group
    JohnMalone
    Reply Vote

    • What about Vegas?

      The story indicated that the survey went out to
      about 6,700 folks, so how do you get "over
      7,000" -- I've never seen an online survey that
      drew 100% responses.

      And what happened to Las Vegas? You move? If not
      who is in Tokyo?

      I am not trying to be snarky here. I do applaud
      the hard work you did on this, and I appreciate
      your pointing out that you have been analyzing
      PBX data for a long, long time.

      Maybe it's the original story that was bad.
      DanaBlankenhorn
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Does open source control 18% of the PBX market?

    I wouldn't be surprise if that figure of 18% is a bit low.

    Asterisk is globally being used in many variants.

    I've spent considerable time with asterisk and can say that a linux admin can install to a machine in a matter of minutes.

    The difficult undertaking comes with setting up afterwards the sip.conf, extensions.conf. Only difficult because of the arcane scripting syntax but worth the effort to learn.

    You don't need the Digium hardware to get asterisk running--it can even be set up in the cloud, e.g., ec2.
    no_zd_user_name
    Reply Vote

    • Agreed

      One thing that Vyatta and Asterisk both prove is
      that a general purpose computer is capable of a
      lot more than we think.

      So what is a PBX? What is a router?

      If it's just software, why not run it here on my
      PC? I've got a major switch on the next block --
      send me the bits and I'll route 'em for you. And
      I'll hire some Indians to be an answering
      service.

      Now if I can just get Judy Holliday back from
      the dead we can put on a real show. (Spoiler
      alert. Bells Are Ringing, with Dean Martin and
      Jean Stapleton.)
      DanaBlankenhorn
      Reply Vote

  • Good for them, bad for us.

    I think this is great for Open Source and Asterisk. But it's going to be murder on the rest of us. Now, every two bit Mom & Pop operation can torture us with endless menus and submenus and put us on hold while music, especially chosen for its irritating qualities, increases the chances that we'll hang up. I have noticed this trend of the automated phone service labyrinth getting worse. It will continue to get worse until it is found to be responsible for a number of deaths. Then, in order to save ourselves from ourselves, the Government will to step in and regulate.
    kozmcrae
    Reply Vote

  • go open source

    I work with Nortel equipment, namely the BCM 400 crap and BCM 50. What I found annoying about Nortel is how lousy their solutions are. I mean there is a good idea, followed by software solution looking like a college kids were implementing it. Many features looking great while showing them on a big screen in a showroom, yet quite useless when attempting to use them when dealing with 100s of extension telephones. Besides that you have this never ending cycle of keycode troubles. Like: today you need to setup one more employee. So, you call the vendor to order one more (or more than that) keycode for one more voice mail seat. Your vendor will deliver the keycode, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week. Nice.
    I, as a vendor, need to buy the authorization code from somebody who is authorized Nortel dealer ($100 000 or more in monthly sales), then I need to bother somebody else to get me the keycode based on the authorization code purchased. You know, I can't just go to the Nortel website myself, I need to be an authorized dealer to get the actual keycode. So guess what, I stopped convincing people to buy Nortel. Instead I started giving them the option to go with other solutions, like Asterix. I believe that by pissing off the little guy the Nortel chose their own destiny. Check the markets to see how badly they stand now.
    You may say, why wouldn't the end user buy directly from a big guy ($100 000+ in monthly sales). I say - I don't know. Maybe it has to do with the big guy's approach to their clients. Anyway, I could elaborate on a number of letter sized pages here, but I think this is quite enough for a quick insight.
    dcdavy
    Reply Vote

  • Virtual PBX for SMB

    Why have the hassles of buying, maintaining and
    programming open source PBX. You can now have
    your whole phone system run from a cloud. All
    you need is business broadband and VOIP
    handsets (or soft phones). Thin clients can
    also provide virtual computer access and VOIP
    telephony without upgrade cycles. For further
    information see http://www.applicationsnet.com/

    matthewbulat
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Does open source control 18% of the PBX market?

    There is no second thought that Opensource has already grabbed the PBX market at its neck. Take trixbox, it is an opensource.

    Cheers,
    Kathiravan Manoharan
    http://kathyravan.blogspot.com
    http://paisamechanic.blogspot.com
    mkathiravone
    Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close