Despite the economic downturn -- in fact,
because of the economic downturn -- companies everywhere are investing in their communications networks. Many of them have come to acknowledge that today’s advanced, IP-based communications technologies, such as VoIP and Unified Communications (
News -
Alert), can help boost employee productivity, cut communications costs and give them a competitive edge.
Although migrating to these new technologies can sometimes require a significant upfront investment in new hardware, architecture and/or software, they’ve been around long enough now where there is sufficient data showing the advantages they bring, and the rapid return on investment they can deliver.
What’s more, there has been a surge of new service providers and equipment makers entering the VoIP/UC market in recent years, and the fierce competition among them has resulted in a flattening of pricing among comparable solutions. This has resulted in better feature sets and improved capabilities, as well as lower pricing, which in turn has stimulated increased interest, especially in the small to medium sized business market.
Supporting these assertions is a
new survey from analyst firm Infonetics Research (
News -
Alert) showing that, although the future of the economy is still uncertain, companies still plan to invest in voice communications, not slash budgets as is feared by many in the industry.
The survey, conducted in April and May 2009, asked decision makers in charge of IT expenditures at North American companies about their plans for 2009 in terms of infrastructure (PBXs/phone systems, key systems, phones, voice gateways, etc.); applications (voicemail, unified messaging, presence engines, IP contact center, etc.); maintenance and support (software upgrades, moves/adds/changes); and communication services (local dial-tone, long distance, trunking, conferencing, etc.). The survey only targeted companies that use enterprise telephony equipment (TDM or IP PBXs), or will by 2010.
The distribution of voice communication expenditures among those surveyed ranged from up to $50,000 to more than $1 million, annually, with the majority of respondent organizations spending between $100,000 and $500,000 in 2008.
The survey finds that most organizations are planning slight reductions in communication services, and increases in infrastructure investments. Infonetics says this is an indication that buyers are willing to continue making capital investments as long as it reduces their overall expenditures.
“Ultimately, companies do want to decrease or slow the growth of their overall voice communications expenditures,” said Matthias Machowinski, Directing Analyst, Enterprise Voice and Data, Infonetics Research, in a
release. “One item they're looking at cutting is communication services (long distance, trunking, conferencing, etc.), which takes up the largest portion of the budget. Meanwhile, they're willing to invest in new infrastructure and applications if it contains or reduces communication services.”
In some cases companies are even willing to make a trade-off in terms of capital expenditure and savings on communications costs, just in order to gain the operational efficiencies that are inherent with IP communications.
The survey indicates that there is still plenty of room for growth in terms of upgrading company networks to all-IP: A good number of companies continue to use TDM-based services, such as PRIs and T1s, even though they've already deployed IP PBXs, it states.
The survey, “How Companies Are Changing Their Voice Communication Spending in 2009: End-User Survey,” is part of Infonetics’ Enterprise Voice Continuous Research Service.
In May Infonetics released a report showing that the global VoIP services market grew 33 percent in 2008 to $30.8 billion. Its biannual
VoIP and UC Services and Subscribers reports reveals that, despite the global recession, businesses continue to switch from traditional telephone service to hosted VoIP or “virtual PBX (
News -
Alert)” services. They’re being drawn to VoIP, the report finds, because of the cost savings and productivity enhancing features it brings.
More recently the company released a report ranking
Blue Coat Systems as the
leader in the WAN optimization market. Blue Coat (
News -
Alert), according to the report, has increased its market share in the first calendar quarter of 2009 and has shown quarter over quarter revenue growth.
Patrick Barnard is a contributing writer for TMCnet. To read more of Patrick’s articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Patrick Barnard
