Pingtel Offers New Open Source Business Model for VoIP

Pingtel is moving its entire Enterprise communications suite, SIPxchange IP PBX platform, into open source. With this move, Pingtel has shifted its business model to become a subscription-based software and services company similar to leading Linux-based enterprise subscription models, focusing on producing business-grade distributions of open source code and offering the requisite customer support, documentation, professional services and training functions required to support mission critical enterprise communications applications. The company plans to release the code in March 2004 through its website.



"The combination of standards-based SIP and open source is a powerful union that will reshape the enterprise communications market at every level, providing the foundation on which a new market model will be based," said William J. Rich, Pingtel's CEO.



Pingtel's enterprise communications suite includes the SIPxchange Comm Server for IP PBX and call routing applications, SIPxchange Media Server with voice mail, auto-attendant and IVR, the Pingtel Configuration Server and the Instant xpressa) SIP soft phone and xpressa) desktop SIP phones. SIPxchange software runs on standard PC server hardware and using the Linux open source operating system. Pingtel will offer Enterprise Editions of the open source code base with full support and documentation on a subscription basis, based on the number of CPUs in the server host.



Pingtel also said that it is in the process of migrating its existing customer base to the new open-source model. http://www.pingtel.com