Digium AA50 1.2 Software Released

Yesterday, Digium released version 1.2 for the Digium Asterisk Appliance 50 (AA50). It's been awhile since I've heard any news about the AA50, so I'm glad to see Digium is still developing for the AA50 even with their new Switchvox-based AA60 appliance offering and their even newer AA300 & AA350 offerings. Actually, I discussed whether Digium's AA60, AA300, and AA350 would compete against their original AA50 Asterisk appliance, which might be worth a read. In a nutshell, I stated that they target different sized businesses. Still, there is some overlap, which is why I'm glad to see Digium is continue to develop for the AA50.

So anyway, what's new in 1.2? First this interesting tidbit for Polycom phone fans: "My Polycom 3XX IP phones display acted funny in the 1.1.x firmware releases. Can I have the original, 1.0.x, behavior back?" To which Digium responds, "Yes. In 1.2, on the Options menu, there's a setting called "Enable Idle Image Display." Turn this setting off, Apply Changes, and reboot your phone."

Also new in 1.2 is support for Internet Explorer 7 and numerous usability improvements in the GUI itself. A new System Status page shows "firmware revision, information about your trunks (Did my VoIP trunks register okay?  Did they fail?), and information about your extensions (what's on your system, and where do they point?)."

One important new feature is on the Trunks page. The pre-configured VoIP service providers are now pulled dynamically from a Digium webservice, instead of being hardcoded into the firmware. Thus, the next time one of the pre-configured providers changes something in their required configuration, Digium can automatically address it without requiring users to download a new AA50 firmware.

Another important new feature is that the Outgoing Calling rules page now allows outbound call pattern matches, in addition to a trunk path, to also be sent to a local destination or out via a fail-over trunk if the primary trunk is unreachable.

All AA50 users that purchased their AA50 and registered their subscription before August 13, 2008 will receive an additional free year of subscription. So essentially, Digium is giving away the 1.2 upgrade for free to those who registered.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what's new, so go check of the Digium blog post for more. Lastly, I'm actually headed down to Huntsville, Alabama to meet with the Digium crew at their headquarters to find out what Digium is up too lately. Hopefully, I'll have interesting news to report. Stay tuned!