Open Source Takes on Telecom

BusinessWeek Online has a nice interview with Asterisk creator and Digium President Mark Spencer, Open Source Takes on Telecom.

In 1999, Mark Spencer needed a phone system for his startup, Linux Support Services. The company's aim was to provide technical support to businesses and programmers for Linux, an operating system for which the source code is free, making it an appealing alternative to Microsoft's Windows. But, Spencer was still a student at Auburn University and he had raised a mere $4,000 in startup capital. "I thought I really needed to get a phone system, but they were simply too expensive," he says.