Digium announces the final beta of its AsteriskNOW software appliance. New AsteriskNOW beta 5 features, as well as extensive product testing and feedback from the Asterisk community, make this the final beta leading up to Q2 availability of AsteriskNOW 1.0. Customers can deploy AsteriskNOW in minutes to start using Asterisk, the most popular open source telephone system in the world, in their organizations.

Introduced last quarter by Digium, the creator and primary developer of Asterisk, AsteriskNOW includes all the software customers need to install and configure a phone system that offers the advanced features found in expensive proprietary products. AsteriskNOW is free and can run on customers’ existing servers. An easy-to-read AsteriskNOW screen helps customers who do not have an Internet VoIP service provider choose a Digium Asterisk Certified Service Provider or add another that they select.

An AsteriskNOW installation demo will be held in the Digium World Theatre at VON on Wednesday, March 21 at 11:00 a.m. Copies of the new book AsteriskNOW for Dummies are also available at the conference. Those not attending VON can view a YouTube video of Mark Spencer walking users through the easy installation.

AsteriskNOW was awarded “Best of Show” for Innovation at Internet Telephony Expo in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in January of this year. Attendees at this week’s VON can also see the AsteriskNOW demos in Digium’s booth on a regularly scheduled basis.

Highlights of AsteriskNOW beta 5 include:

• Asterisk software, a customized Linux distribution and the AsteriskGUI graphical user interface needed to run AsteriskNOW.
• Installation using a setup wizard, making AsteriskNOW easy to configure and deploy.
• An expanded group of Digium Asterisk Certified Service Providers—IAXtel, New Global Telecom, Simple Signal, VoicePulse and Voilà IP—that ensure interoperability between their VoIP services and AsteriskNOW. Customers may also select their own VoIP service provider.
• The ability to manage multiple dial plans to allow organizations to tailor telephony features for different functional groups.
• Direct inward dial features that have been added to the setup wizard to more easily let administrators define rules for handling calls placed to direct lines.
• Music on hold per queue options that allow the organization to have different recorded messages or music played for callers waiting for customer service, for example, than for sales.
• GUI error handling designed to guide users when they have keyed an extension or option that does not exist.
• Support for alphanumeric extensions to give system administrators more flexibility in assigning phone number extensions.
• Context-sensitive advanced tooltips that help administrators are now fully functional.
• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 browser support, in addition to Firefox.
• New drivers to support the latest hardware within the Linux distribution.
• Additional updates based on significant product quality testing.

Availability

AsteriskNOW is licensed under the open source general public license and is free to download and use. The software will be available at http://www.asterisknow.org/ beginning on Friday, March 23.