Digium announces that IDG’s InfoWorld has recognized Asterisk 1.4 as a 2008 Technology of the Year. Selected by InfoWorld Test Center editors and reviewers, the annual awards, presented this year on January 8, identify the best and most innovative products on the IT landscape. Asterisk is the most widely used open source telephony software with more than one million downloads in 2007 and more than 100 million users worldwide.

InfoWorld reports, “a complete IP PBX released as open source under the GNU Public License, Asterisk is built to run on commodity hardware, providing considerable cost savings when compared with commercial alternatives, and it leverages the open source community for additional testing, bug fixes, and feature development.”

“InfoWorld tests upwards of 200 IT products every year, and we see many, many good ones," said Doug Dineley, InfoWorld’s Test Center executive editor. “Our Technology of the Year award winners represent not only the cream of the crop, but the best products in the most important product categories. From the top AJAX development tools and SOA middleware to the best blade servers and VoIP systems, these are the products at the leading edge of IT.”

Mark Spencer, creator of Asterisk and Digium’s chief technology officer, commented: “The InfoWorld Technology of the Year 2008 award is an enormous acknowledgement of the work and success of the worldwide Asterisk community. Asterisk wouldn’t be in a position to rival some of the biggest vendors of proprietary voice technology today if it weren’t for the inherent strength of open source and dedication of the community of developers.”