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The study showed that working Open Source PBX system sizes run the gamut from small, under 10 end points, to many hundred end points. 35% of systems had 1-10 end points, 40% had 11-50 end points and 25% had more than 50 end points. Two percent had over 1,000 end points (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Total Locations of Businesses with at Least One Open Source PBX

Asterisk is the most widely used Open Source PBX, and dominates in market share with more than 85% of the Open Source market. Competing alternatives such as CallWeaver, FreeSWITCH, sipX/sipXecs and YATE play varying roles.

Customers often turn to a manufacturer to sell and install the Open Source PBX since it’s worth the money. Digium has almost half of this market, though other companies are represented, including Fonality and Aastra.

Not surprisingly, a large number of SIP phone manufacturers provide end points within Open Source PBX-based systems. Among them we found strong sales by Aastra, Linksys, Polycom, Grandstream and snom. Polycom leads all other manufacturers of SIP phones for use with OS PBXs with 11% market share.

Digium is the largest supplier of gateways, but other players are in evidence including Cisco, Sangoma, AudioCodes, Dialogic, Grandstream, PIKA, Quintum, and Rhino.

Few traditional PBX manufacturers we interviewed saw Open Source PBXs as any threat to their business. However we came across no traditional PBX manufacturer that knew open source is 18% of the total market. And it’s growing.

IN THE FUTURE

For Open Source to be the success it is, might suggest the largest VARs were early to seize a nascent business opportunity, and could justifiably take credit. That’s not the case. Working with a list of the largest 500 VARs, we began one series of interviews working our way down the list from the top, only to conclude that smaller VARs deserve more credit for the growth of Open Source. So far, large VARs have been largely under-accounted-for in the Open Source PBX market.

In the future there should be substantial growth of large VARs entering the Open Source PBX market. Driving this behavior will be all the enterprise customers that need implementation support, as our study found, since these same customers have already been converted to Open Source. It’s inevitable that the large VAR is going to follow the large customer. And this is going to add to the growth of Open Source PBXs.

CONCLUSION

The economic climate for the next few years may well be an asset to the Open Source PBX market and vendors. Many businesses have already made decisions to acquire one or more IP PBXs, and the price of OS PBXs are so low as to attract more than passing attention. Even if the market for all systems slows, the demonstrated success of the OS PBX market has already provided a suitable foundation to ensure durability of this technology in any climate.

John Malone is president and CEO of the Eastern Management Group, a global research and consulting firm advising telecommunications industry clients. Its PBX systems practice is one of Eastern Management’s oldest advisory services, and has assisted hundreds of companies worldwide for three decades. Eastern Management’s PBX and Key System Monitor tracking service has reported system shipments each quarter for 25 years. Eastern Management’s current study on Open Source is entitled The Market for Open Source PBXs and is available by contacting The Eastern Management Group, www.easternmanagement.com.

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