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December 21, 2007

ABI Research Looks at the Importance of Partnership in the Development of Voice over Wi-Fi Markets


A study conducted by ABI Research (News - Alert), a leading market research firm, shows that extensive partnering is very important in the development of Voice over Wi-Fi technology.



 
ABI Research is focusing on impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets. They provide assistance to hundreds of clients each year with their strategic growth initiatives. It has a worldwide team of industry analysts for primary research, market intelligence and expert assessment.
 
Their study shows that even though Voice over Wi-Fi has made some inroads in consumer markets, there are several inhibiting factors which are temporarily restraining its adoption, by business.
 
Stan Schatt, vice president and research director, ABI Research said in a press release:” We’re seeing historic early Wi-Fi adopters with special needs that are addressed by VoWi-Fi once again becoming early adopters of this technology, in key verticals such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing and hospitality. Large enterprise clients, however, have tended to be more conservative.” He also added that the future of VoWi-Fi is pretty bright, but it will take sometime before it becomes a horizontal application which is attractive to mainstream enterprises.
 
There are several hurdles to overcome for VoWi-Fi technology. One of them is its complexity, because it requires extensive partnering between manufacturers and vendors of individual system elements, both at the handset and network levels. It also requires partnering with key VARs and integrators to reach early adopters.
 
"Enterprise VoWi-Fi is a complicated market because there are so many disparate pieces of technology that have to work together,” Schatt said in the press release “That requires a lot of partnering, and some vendors are better at partnering than others. Cisco Systems, Trapeze Networks, Xirrus Networks, DiVitas Networks and the SpectraLink division of Polycom (News - Alert) have all found partnering models appropriate to their niches and needs.”
 
One more hurdle includes lack of industry-wide standards.
 
The Wi-Fi Alliance (News - Alert) is scheduled to start enterprise VoWi-Fi equipment interoperability testing during spring of 2008.
 
 “With key standards still not in place,” Schatt said in press release “Vendors have jumped in with proprietary solutions. So for now you’re still forced to go with a one-vendor solution. The start of certification testing on enterprise-grade Wi-Fi handsets will go a long way towards opening this market up.”
 
A new study conducted by ABI Research, The Voice over Wi-Fi Ecosystem, evaluates the state of technology and also examines all the disparate pieces that must be in place, for a vendor, to offer a complete VoWi-Fi solution. It evaluates the ecosystems of various vendors on more than a dozen critical parameters and studies how well developed they are.
 
The study also supplements with Voice over Wi-Fi Ecosystems Vendor Matrix, which evaluates wireless LAN equipment companies, based on the degree of innovation and implementation of this technology. The chart is made on twin axes of Innovation and Implementation. The chart also evaluates that the strength of a company's Voice over Wi-Fi offering is directly related to that of company's success or lack of success in partnering with key industry players, and later integrating those partners' technologies into their own architectures.
 
The Voice over Wi-Fi Ecosystems and the Vendor Matrix form the part of Fixed-Mobile Convergence (News - Alert) and Wi-Fi. The Vendor Matrix is also a part of Mobile Broadband and Mobile Devices.
 
Jayashree Adkoli is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

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