ADTRAN And Digium Asterisk: Rivals or Close Cousins?

It’s no secret that Digium (the poster child for Asterisk) has multiple employees who previously worked at ADTRAN, a neighboring networking company in Huntsville, Alabama. Are ADTRAN and Digium rivals or partners? The answer: A little of both.

Sure, some folks may tell you that ADTRAN and Digium compete for IT talent in Huntsville. In fact, Digium’s executive team includes multiple ADTRAN veterans. And as more and more customers kick the tires on open source Asterisk solutions, it could create new competition for traditional VoIP solutions sold by ADTRAN, Cisco and other traditional networking firms.

Friends or Foes?

The press loves to play up potential friction between ADTRAN and Digium. But during a visit to ADTRAN’s headquarters today, The VAR Guy heard from a key ADTRAN customer that has built a mixed network using ADTRAN and Digium solutions.

Moreover, ADTRAN described how the company’s R&D team continues to test product integration with Digium’s offerings as part of a strategy to maintain strong connectivity with third-party products.

The VAR Guy needs to check in with Digium for their perspective on the ADTRAN relationship.

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