[asterisk-biz] Open Source in an Economic Downturn: Asterisk stories needed

[John Todd]

I'm giving a talk at SCALE 2009 (Southern CAlifornia Linux Expo) on  
Sunday in Los Angeles, and the topic of my talk is "Open Source in an  
Economic Downturn".  I've got lots of talking points for this talk,  
but it would be interesting to hear some short anecdotes about how you  
in the Asterisk community are thriving, or at least surviving, by  
virtue of the benefits of Open Source.  I find that real-world  
examples are worth more than all of the bullet points in the world,  
and timely stories from the community would be more interesting than  
hearing me prattle on.

Please ensure that your snippet or list of points are in some way  
related to the benefits of open-source, or how other alternatives are  
less attractive in the <cough> "compressed economic environment."  I'd  
prefer of course to hear about how Asterisk is the silver bullet for  
your particular business, but I'm open to any OSS-based solution being  
a tool for you at this point.

Send your comments publicly or privately - let me know if you want to  
remain anonymous, otherwise I'll give you free advertising by using  
your name or company name in my talk if I use your story.

PS: Of course, the talk/slides will be available with Creative Commons  
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, and I  
expect that I'll probably use all or parts of this talk a few times  
this year, given the focus on the economy.

JT

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John Todd                       email:jtodd at digium.com
Digium, Inc. | Asterisk Open Source Community Director
445 Jan Davis Drive NW -  Huntsville AL 35806  -   USA
direct: +1-256-428-6083         http://www.digium.com/