The Forbes article then goes on to say that the VoIP sub-segment of the overall IP telephony market (it classifies IP Telephony as including IP Fax, SMS and or voice messaging with VoIP being the vast majority of the total revenue) remains hot with SIP trunking coming on strong to support what other researchers feel will be a shift from 31 percent of all business lines being VoIP now to 66 percent by 2015. It also points to the growth of smartphones and tablets and the upward pressure of enterprise socialization as driving the need for enterprises to switch to IP solutions (cloud as well as premises based) to accommodate the multimedia needs of these devices.
In other words, the troika of mobile-social-cloud is hastening the death of TDM communications equipment optimized for voice, and given that the last major upgrade/replacement cycle of most installed communications equipment was because of for Y2K fears, the reality is that the base has never been older and certainly is in need of a replenish. We actually reached what should have been a tipping point similar to what happened when the world shifted from analog to digital PBXs and Key Systems, but which has been forestalled to a certain extent by the use of gateways which preserve functionality of the core PBX and its software yet provide interoperability with the IP world.
Enter the 800 Pound Gorilla —That is NOT a Costume!
I will be brief here because this is a subject that is evolutionary and not revolutionary and will undoubtedly be returned to often. Now for the mischief that was promised
.
While Telegeopraphy sees a sales pick-up as a result of enterprise adoption of Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) and more VoIP, what I see is market mayhem.
Numerous blogs have noted that at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, company officials (including CEO Steven Ballmer (News - Alert)) stated that the sales trajectories of Microsoft Lync licenses was clearly going to make it their next billion-dollar platform, and sooner rather than later.
For the unfamiliar, Lync is Microsoft's unified communications platform that combines voice, Web conferencing, and instant messaging. It was launched on a new server platform in 2010, is relatively inexpensive by industry and not just Microsoft standards and integrates will with Office 365. In fact, the only thing it is missing at the moment is a robustness in its PBC functionality in its hosted/cloud formulation, but this too shall come.
Why is this important? I am going to go here with a keen grasp of the obvious. After wandering in the PBX/VoIP wilderness for almost a decade, Microsoft has it right.
Better yet, from an IT department standpoint, especially for multi-nationals, the coming integration of Skype (News
- Alert) is going to only add a level of brutality to traditional incumbents. And, make no mistake about it, Microsoft is lusting after the 10 million installed lines of Cisco as a target of opportunity. { Dude it's called an EA they already have rights to ync 2010 or Wave 15 ;) - KP the VoIP Outlaw}And, did I forget to mention that industry statisticians, netmarketshare.com (who track everything from browser to OS to tablet shares) last time I looked gave Microsoft Windows 92.44 percent of the desktop operating system market. Okay so they don’t have a presence in the tablet OS or mobile handheld markets, but the hands they do hold are those of ID decision-makers and can you spell
INTEGRATION if at first they don’t succeed?
So what is missing from the Forbes piece and the Telegeography outlook? How about those folks in Redomnd, WA who brought us Outlook?
The facts are that all traditional providers of premises-based telecommunications equipment need to be doing something more than looking in their rearview mirrors. As the late, great African-American pitcher Satchel Paige used to say, “Don't look back; they might be gaining on you.”
This is not going to be a case of age before beauty. Yes, Microsoft has gotten things wrong in the past. Yes, even IBM managed to mangle the PBX business years ago and exasperated sold out to Siemens. However, time is running out. Technology is moving too fast and the installed base is ready to be yanked out. It is going to be interesting...." - Paul Bernstein TMC
FULL STORY : http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/topics/enterprise-voip/articles/235874-pbx-market-shares-microsoft-lync-what-not-yet.htm
