Digium hits the one millionth download of Asterisk in 2007, capping off a record year for the leading open source telephony company. Digium, which will complete its 24th consecutive quarter of growth and profitability this year, created headlines with new executive appointments, industry awards, strategic partnerships and acquisitions aimed at further advancing the company’s presence in the small-to-medium-sized VoIP market.

Open source Asterisk continues to revolutionize the VoIP market by giving companies a cheaper and more flexible alternative to proprietary solutions. The 2007 introduction of Digium’s Asterisk Appliance based on Embedded Asterisk Business Edition successfully combined the cost savings and flexibility of open source with the rapid installation, high reliability and ease of use of a business appliance. PC Magazine called the Asterisk Appliance “astonishingly compact” and packed with “high-end features.”

Additional 2007 highlights include:

Executive Appointments – Danny Windham joined the company as CEO from ADTRAN, a $500M+, publicly-traded networking company. Mark Spencer, founder of Digium and creator of Asterisk, assumed the role of CTO to focus on growing the future of Asterisk and developing new unified communications applications based on open source. Digium also added a VP of Sales and VP of Engineering to round out its management team.

Acquisitions – With its new executive leadership team in place, Digium looked to grow its presence within the Asterisk open source community and SMB VoIP market. In July, Digium acquired Sokol & Associates, the premier provider of training for Asterisk users and producer of the AstriCon open source user conference. In September, Digium completed its acquisition of Switchvox, a leading provider of IP PBX phone systems powered by Asterisk for SMBs.

Partnerships – In October, Digium announced a partnership with 3Com Corporation to offer “3Com Asterisk” to small businesses that need a reliable, easy-to-deploy voice solution based on open standards and open source. Digium also announced a licensing agreement with NTT Software Corp., a subsidiary of Japan’s largest phone company, to sell products based on Asterisk Business Edition in Asia.

Industry Awards – Digium won InfoWorld’s Best of Open Source Software award and was the only open source company recognized in the VoIP category. Digium was named the top emerging VoIP vendor by Computer Reseller News and its newly acquired Switchvox SMB 3.0 Software received the publication’s “Tech Innovator” award. Network World named Digium an “open source company to watch” and CRM Magazine gave Digium its “Rising Star” and “Service Excellence” award. Locally, Digium accepted the Alabama “Governor’s Trade Excellence Award” for its commitment to local and international business.

Reseller Program and the Digium Asterisk Marketplace – In 2007, Digium announced a new Authorized Reseller Program and unveiled the Digium Asterisk Marketplace to give the Asterisk community of end-users, developers, small businesses and enterprises a one-stop online destination for all their open source VoIP deployment needs.

Digium|Asterisk World – This year marked the inaugural debut of Digium|Asterisk World, an event solely dedicated to advancing open source IP telephony communications in business environments. The event included a ceremony announcing the winners of the first annual Digium “Innovation Awards” honoring businesses putting Asterisk to use in new and exciting ways.