The VAR Guy queries Digium CEO Danny Windham, “What is the Asterisk Exchange?”

Mr. Windham replies, “Asterisk Exchange is a website that Digium is launching on Thursday the 21st in conjunction with ITEXPO. It is a marketplace that is designed to be a one stop shop for products that are Asterisk-based, add-ons for Asterisk, and products that are interopable or compatible with Asterisk. It’s a website that Digium has built and will maintain in the future as part of our commitment to expand and grow the Asterisk ecosystem.”

Watch the video interview and read more transcription below.

The VAR Guy asks who will participate? Software companies? Hardware companies? All of the above?

Mr. Windham states, “Any partner of our ecosystem that is interested in providing a product to the Asterisk community or marketing a product to the Asterisk community will be served by the Asterisk Exchange. However, today what we are launching is phase one. It is dedicated to products. Those are products based on Asterisk, products that are interoporable with Asterisk, or products that are add-ons to Asterisk.”

“What about channel partners like VARs and solutions providers, service providers… do you see them going to the Asterisk Exchange to piece together solutions? ” continues the VAR Guy.

“Yes, future implementations of Asterisk Exchange will be expanded to include services. But even today a large portion of our channel are in business to provide a product or a service based on Asterisk. The existence of the Exchange, gives them a one stop to get access to all the add-ons, and it gives them a way to keep track of what the new innovations are that help Asterisk to be more usable. Whatever problem they are trying to solve.”

The VAR guy asks, “Let’s assume this is my first time to hear about the Asterisk Exchange. How do I get involved with it? What are the first steps to take?”

Mr. Windham replies, “The site will launch next Thursday. Go to http://www.asteriskexchange.com. Everything you need to know about how to get listed on the site is available on the site. If you have a product you would like to make available to the community for free, those can be place on the site for free. If you are selling a product that is based on Asterisk, then there is a fee for listing your product on the site. That fee is a standard $5000 listing for a year with a 50% off through first half of this year (2010) to get the site up and going.”

The VAR guy asks how the site is organized. The Digium CEO answers that visitors can browse by product category, by vendor name… something that has been historically an issue in open source is understanding what level of quality you are getting with add-ons. Customers of Asterisk Exchange will be able to rank and review the products listed. As a user, now you have feedback from other users about the quality and usability of the product. Will it do what you thought it would do?