Telephony poised to be next enterprise/FOSS win

Esther Schindler writes: "Open source may be accepted for your company's software development efforts and in your data center. But FOSS options haven't gained as much adoption in telephony, mobile devices and the VOIP market space. Expect that to change, says Pam Baker at CIO.com, in Open-Source Mobile Telephony Goes Legit... though the telecom "open source" nature may be somewhat bastardized.

One pioneer in the open-source telephony space is Fonality which in 2008 recorded a record 3.3 million open-source commercial installations. "But the truth is that open source is only the first layer of our overall solution," explains Chris Lyman, Fonality's CEO. "We started with an [open-source] stack, using components such as Linux, Asterisk, Apache and Perl. But, on top of that, we layered 5 million lines of our own proprietary code."

Still, says the article, everything is pointing to open source adoption across the mobile and telecom industries, particularly in enterprises where mobile device costs are considerable:

It previously could be argued that handset movement toward open source could amount to nothing in the end, given U.S. carriers' ironclad hold on which handsets and features actually make it to users' hands. But that argument dissolves in the face of Verizon's recent bid to open its cellular network to compatible and certified devices. That play potentially breaks the locked device environment permanently. "If Android gets certified on the Verizon network, any phone that runs Android could complete calls on Verizon," says Gary Zimmerman, director of product marketing at Avotus. "So the switch between carriers no longer requires a swap of equipment."

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