A new market report on the on-going penetration of IP telephony among businesses, predicts continued strong worldwide growth in this sector.
The report, ‘Global Enterprise Telephony Market 2010-2014’, by market research company, TechNavio, forecasts that IP (internet protocol) telephony will have achieved a compound worldwide annual market growth rate of 1.4% between 2010 and 2014.
The report cites a number of factors for this expected rise.
One of the determinants influencing the predicted growth in IP telephony, the report claims, has been a lowering of the costs of installing in-house IP telephony hardware, including the adaptation or replacement of existing business phone systems.
In addition, the report adds, many businesses are strongly attracted to the possibilities that IP telephony can bring for unified communications (UC). IP-based solutions can, for example, incorporate the convergence of business VoIP (voice over internet protocol), video and data over a single network channel.
The advantages of UC, the report says, are a reduction in bandwidth requirement; and less reliance on complex maintenance agreements – both of which, it says, can lead to a significant saving in costs.
However, the main reason behind the predicted growth in the global IP telephony market among businesses, according to the report, is the opportunities the latter now have in subscribing to a hosted IP telephony solution.
A hosted solution – from a business VoIP provider perhaps, or possibly a VoIP reseller – can, the report says, make IP telephony much more accessible; particularly for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) where major upfront investment in new business phone systems and other hardware might not be possible.
A spokesperson for Technavio commented:
‘The market is witnessing a shift to software licensing from hardware infrastructure. The hosted model enables enterprises to purchase software licence on a monthly/annual subscription without having to invest in costly hardware.’
