Tuesday, 15 January 2008

IP Continues Outpacing Traditional PBXs

IP telephony has crossed over from an emerging technology to the mainstream choice for business voice.

According to reports by In-Stat, user acceptance of IP telephony is high, with sales of IP lines in the first half of 2007 continuing to solidly outpace those of traditional lines as the move to IP telephony among businesses continues, the high-tech market research firm says.

"For IP telephony, the initial technical and operational challenges are behind it," says Norm Bogen, In-Stat Research Director.

"ROIs are proving the economics to be solid, and the productivity gains associated with the technology are, and will continue to exceed, those that could be realized with traditional telephony."

Other findings from the In-Stat study "Worldwide PBX Update: It's All About IP" found that:

- In the first half of 2007, 11.1 million IP lines were shipped worldwide, comprising over 80 percent of total shipments.

- Nortel, Avaya and Cisco continue to lead the IP PBX market, but Microsoft's entry into this market will have a major impact for years to come.

- Unified communications is the current battleground for vendors.