Digium, the company behind global open source internet protocol (IP) telephony facilitator Asterisk, has been hailed as a ‘visionary’ organisation by one of the world’s most respected independent global technological market research organisations, Gartner.
Gartner made the comment as part of its analysis of current and future trends in the market for IP telephony and business VoIP (voice over internet protocol).
Gartner’s praise for Digium does not appear to have been bestowed lightly, especially given that the only other company singled out by Gartner as having equal ‘visionary’ status was international computing giant, Microsoft.
Gartner says its assessment of the two companies was based largely on their capacity for generating complete creative solutions in the technology sphere.
Elsewhere in its overall market assessment, Garner pointed to two key developments which it says had figured prominently in the IP telephony sphere over the past two years – reduced systems costs and the increasing inclusion of Unified Communications (UC) features in IP telephony packages. The latter would include such features as the capacity to receive faxes via the same reception point as used to access web data.
Looking ahead, Gartner says that the market for business VoIP software and hardware will grow by a compound rate of 2.2% up to and including 2016.
The organisation advises those looking to adapt or install business phone systems to search for a business VoIP provider, VoIP reseller, or supplier, who is able to offer the latest in IP telephony features.
These features, it says, should include video and voice conferencing facilities, compatibility with other IP telephony facilities and solutions, the capacity to integrate other UC features at a later date, scalability and the potential for securing reduced phone costs.
Gartner also indicated that any solution chosen should additionally offer the capacity to adapt existing business phone systems through session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking.
