Voice Management

While the current economic slump continues, the global enterprise IP telephony (IPT) endpoint market is not expected to escape the affects. At the same time, an increasing number of enterprises are recognizing the benefits that are provided by both IP desktop phones and enterprise soft clients.

What was once a simple device, the IP desktop phone is now a highly intelligent and integrated communication endpoint that is interoperable with enterprise hardware and software platforms as well as communication applications.

 

In a new analysis from Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) called, World Enterprise IP Telephony Endpoint Markets it suggests that the market earned revenues of more than $2.68 billion in 2008.

Growth continued in 2008 for the world enterprise IP desktop phone market, generating $2.57 billion in total revenues. While projections include a steady decline in revenue until 2010, the market is expected to gradually recover by 2011, followed by a healthy growth pattern until the end of the forecast period in 2015.

 

As IP Telephony continues to grow in the future, there is becoming a need to manage and monitor data. This can be achieved now by Tone Software’s (News - Alert) ReliaTel and Streamline end to end IPT management platform.

 

“The Streamline technology is a very strong QoS offering with a VoIP pre-network assessment capability. In a situation where a company is transitioning to VoIP, the Streamline solution will allow IT managers to very easily and quickly assess whether or not the existing corporate infrastructure is suitable and capable of handling additional voice traffic once they move to VoIP technology. This is really helpful for MSPs because as they are working with their clients moving VoIP equipment into their network, the client’s level of nervousness can be alleviated by doing these assessments,” said Tracey Whitney, director of marketing, Tone Software Corporation.

 

“In addition to that, many of the manufacturers are now requiring business partners and service providers to perform pre-network assessments prior to deploying their VoIP or IP telephony solutions so that there is more assurance that the deployments will be successful,” Whitney added.

An extensive introduction of third-generation IP desktop phones was conducted by various market participants in 2008. These phones include such features as larger color screens, wider support for productivity applications, better synchronization with multiple endpoints, improved audio functionality and even improved power efficiency.

 

When considering the number of units shipped, the world enterprise IP soft client market has more than doubled its size, from 1.0 million clients in 2007 to nearly 2.4 million clients in 2008. This surge has largely been driven by the effective penetration strategies that many IP telephony providers have been implementing to market their telephony packages and UC bundles.

 

“The ReliaTel solution is geared toward the physical infrastructure of monitoring and managing all of the devices and the connections between devices to ensure that they are functioning properly, and also to ensure that they are functioning at optimum performance levels,” said Whitney. “The Streamline technology goes beyond that into a deeper type of management that allows companies to actually measure the quality of each and every IP based phone call so that the voice network administration staff responsible for the voice network can in fact pinpoint where quality problems are occurring.”

While the economic situation has certainly had an impact on this market, it has also helped to create new opportunities. Those companies that have embraced the challenges in the global market and concentrated strategies on leveraging strengths for the economic downturn have survived and even thrived.

Even the recovery will present its own challenges. Sure, opportunities will quickly emerge and those vendors offering strong solutions will likely reap the benefits, but the market and its customers will be different. Even if profits and revenues are readily available in their market space, their strategies for capitalizing on opportunities will have to accommodate the new environment.