Growing MSP Embraces Ubuntu, Asterisk IP PBX

Generally speaking, most traditional VARs still seem focused on Microsoft environments. But Travis Austin (pictured), founder of ReziTech, sees the world from a slightly different view. He’s building a managed services business that leverages Ubuntu Linux and Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Here’s why.

First, a little background: ReziTech‘s Austin took center stage at this week’s Autotask Community Live conference in Miami, which attracted more than 500 VARs and MSPs. For those who aren’t familiar with Autotask, the company offers SaaS-based applications (like Professional Services Automation for services management and VARStreet for product sourcing).

Austin spent most of the conference describing one of his company projects, called MSPintegrations. But The VAR Guy asked Austin to pull back the curtain and describe ReziTech’s internal IT standards. Chief among them are Ubuntu (the Linux distribution from Canonical) and Asterisk (the open source IP PBX most closely associated with Digium).

Want more details? Check out these two FastChat videos with Austin…

Ubuntu for Managed Services Providers

The video covers:

Time to Dial Asterisk

Austin and ReziTech also leverage Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Austin describes how in this video:

The video covers:

Reality Check

Will more VARs and MSPs follow ReziTech’s lead, and embrace both Ubuntu and Asterisk?

For the most part, it sounds like most of the IT channel marches forward with Windows and traditional VoIP platforms. But The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50 survey shows growing momentum for open source in the IT channel. And the latest survey results — due in May 2010 — are expected to show even more open source momentum within the VAR community.

Still, ReziTech is the rare MSP that seems to be building revenue-generating services around both Ubuntu and Asterisk.

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