The VAR Guy

It has been about a month since Digium launched the Asterisk Exchange — an online marketplace to help VARs and customers piece together telephony solutions based upon the open source IP PBX. It’s an intriguing concept — similar to Red Hat’s failed Red Hat Exchange efforts. So can Digium succeed where Red Hat failed? Yes. Here’s why.

The VAR Guy thought Red Hat Exchange — an online store the software company launched last year — would be an overnight hit. It wasn’t. But after some tinkering, Red Hat Exchange (RHX) seems to be taking off — and giving partners like MySQL and Zimbra a lift as well. In fact, the site’s bookings doubled in Red Hat’s most recent quarter, The VAR Guy has learned. Here’s how Red Hat got RHX on track.