Is on-premise VoIP going the way of the dodo bird and fading away in the face of hosted VoIP?
Most analysts agree that the future of VoIP is with the cloud in the long term, as it is with most digital services. But in the short- and mid-term, some think on-premise VoIP still has a lot of life left in it.
A new report by Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) shows only a slight rise in global on-premise VoIP sales over the next seven years; the market should grow from $11.67 billion in 2014 to $11.99 billion by 2021.
While some, such as the Dell’ (News - Alert)Oro Group, think this is the result of the inexorable march of VoIP in the cloud, Frost & Sullivan also ascribes it to a challenging economic climate.
Frost & Sullivan says on-premise VoIP will get an uptick, too, when the remaining TDM systems start being replaced with IP solutions, especially in the mid-market, outside the US, and with companies that want to adopt open standard-based platforms.
Many businesses will continue to want in-house platforms or hybrid systems, says Frost & Sullivan’s UC&C analyst, Michael Brandenburg. Not all businesses will want to go the OpEx subscription route, so vendors should offer both cloud-based solutions and standalone solutions that serve on-premise customers.
There’s something to be said for on-premise VoIP solutions, since the lure of OpEx-based subscription pricing makes sense for technologies that change rapidly, but some firms might not be willing to pay the cloud premium for the advantage of OpEx spend and constant feature upgrade. For many, the total lower cost of on-premise VoIP still makes sense.
At the same time, though, most will choose the subscription model, which is why all vendors must move to support cloud-based VoIP service models even if they also continue to offer on-premise solutions. The cloud isn’t going away in the VoIP space, even if some businesses will continue to demand on-premise solutions.
Eventually on-premise VoIP might go extinct just like the dodo bird—but definitely not yet.