IP Advances Enterprise Telephony

Migration from old, legacy infrastructures to Internet protocol (IP) will steer global enterprise telephony, according to new analysis from Frost & Sullivan entitled "World Enterprise Telephony Platform Markets."

The research finds that the market generated $7.6 billion in 2008, and expects revenues to decline and then stabilize to $7.6 billion in 2014, due to saturation of the market.  However, line shipments are expected to continue experiencing growth, increasing from 46.8 million in 2008 to 52.3 million in 2014.

"Today, cost savings, coupled with the need for tools to create a collaborative environment, which in turn drives innovation and productivity, makes IP essential to their strategy," said Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Vanessa Alvarez, in a statement.

Most skill sets are attuned to traditional time division multiplexing (TDM) systems, and changing this behavior will require time. With more applications added to the network, the complexity intensifies.

IP telephony allows for a more functional and integrated communications infrastructure. Above all, it enables collaboration, a concept, which is poised to revolutionize the work environment, according to Frost & Sullivan.

Enterprise vendors must showcase the ability of IP telephony to allow for a more functional and integrated communications infrastructure, with data and voice running over the same network.