GigaOM

Why are 1 million downloads impressive enough to say “Wow” without any context? You can only say “wow” if you have something relative to compare to. Edward Tufte would be disappointed with your “wow”. Also, just because something was downloaded a million times doesn’t mean that a million people are doing something with Asterisk. How about adding a little more meat to this supposedly news-worthy blog post about Asterisk?

Wow! 1M downloads. How about this for a better number to Wow! 150M, number of Skype users that had to reboot after Microsoft updates. Microsoft is in the telephone system business now with ResponsePoint, competing with Asterisk. Think about it.

Lol about Edward Tufte. Totally true.

I must agree with Om here. It is a very impressive number. Remember this is a server product not a consumer application.
True - the number of real users would be interesting. Unfortunately many service providers are ashamed to say that they use Asterisk, so it is hard to get real figures.
However - as someone who spends a lot of time around the Asterisk community, I have no doubt that Asterisk has changed the telephony scene more than any other server / switch out there. Mark Spencer gave birth to an industry. So yes - WOW!

WOW! I mean really, wow. I’ve got a friend I’m working on some asterisk stuff with, and everything I’ve heard is straight up awesome. WOW!