Giga Om is reporting that Mark Spencer, the originator of the open source PBX Asterisk is stepping down as CEO of Digium.

Digium was founded by Mark Spencer back in 1999 as a consulting company to contain consulting revenue he was generating while at university. This company, Linux Support Services, grew into Digium - which was created to provide support and associated hardware for Asterisk.

The new CEO is Danny Windham, who will leave his position as COO and President of Adtran, a provider of network infrastructure and a minority shareholder in Digium. Mark will step down on February 12 to become CTO, where he can focus on the development of Asterisk and other projects.

The history between Adtran and Digium runs deep. Mark Spencer was employed by Adtran, and received seed capital from the firm when setting off to turn Digium into a product company. Adtran's relationships in the hardware space helped Digium with the sourcing of the initial Asterisk telephony cards as well and became minority shareholder in Digium.

The entrance of Windham is a positive move for Digium, whose revenue is based on providing products, consulting and hardware resale, both functions that he drove at Adtran. Spencer, whose pedigree is in open source development (Asterisk, GAIM), is now put in a position where he can focus on a combination of technology and technology evangelism - areas where he excels. Spencer will, in addition, retain his position as Chairman of the Board. 

Read the Adtran press release 
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