Most IP PBXs sold today are actually hybrid appliances, capable of connecting both IP and time-division multiplexing (TDM) phones, said Steve Raab, Dell'Oro's director of IP telephony research.

 

Pure IP PBXs account for only 20 per cent of total PBX revenues, he said. But Dell'Oro predicts a slowdown in hybrid PBX sales, as more companies opt for pure IP hardware. “At this point, we're getting to where IP telephony is more of a mature technology,” Raab said. “In 2002 and 2003, this technology was still not fully featured and there were still some quality issues, whether it was in the products themselves or in the underlying network.”

 

In the past, corporate networks were often unsuited for real-time applications such as voice, but companies have been upgrading their local-area networks while IP PBX vendors have been adding more features to their products, Raab said. Corporate telecom managers were initially attracted to IP telephony because it reduced the cost of making long-distance calls between branch offices, but now, more companies are looking for “extra value” from IP communications, such as the ability to run applications such as instant messaging, multi-party collaboration, video conferencing and sales force automation, Raab said.

 

“We are seeing acceleration to putting much more IP on the desktop, and we're seeing businesses caring about applications.” He added businesses managers want to be able to connect home workers to their office systems, and are looking for products that will connect all offices in the corporation, eliminating the need to install small switches in all branch offices.

 

Raab also predicts Microsoft Corp. can “disrupt” the market with products like Live Communications Server and Communications Server 2007. Even though Microsoft is not a traditional telephony vendor, it is now more active in the enterprise voice and unified communications markets.

 

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