"Enterprises that have already deployed IP in their networks are beginning to look for ways to leverage the technology," says the analyst of this research service. "The idea that IP is only a means to achieve greater capabilities is gaining strong traction." Most vendors offer incentives to migrate to next-generation IP platforms. The companies would invest more in unified communication as they are increasingly deployed in the large enterprise sector. Network-based communication capabilities in the enterprise telephony market, such as conferencing, collaboration, messaging and mobility, are receiving considerable attention. Microsoft’s entry into the unified communication space has boosted the software-based solution market.
Aggressive Marketing Helps Vendors Maintain the Base while Adopting IP Technologies:
The enterprise telephony market growth rate is falling, despite being in the middle of a replacement cycle. The large enterprises show great caution in adopting IP technologies due to the expected replacement of digital phones in the customer premise, considering the reduction in the price of IP phones. Besides, alternate business models such as managed service and off-premise hosted service threaten to bring down the price of on-premise proposition.
Strong and aggressive marketing programmes help vendors maintain the base for future upgrades and replacements, services and maintenance revenue streams. The cost of losing a customer can be quite high, depending on its size and importance. "Vendors need to take a much more proactive approach in this process and in monitoring the network post implementation," notes the analyst. "If the network infrastructure is properly equipped to handle the increased workload that IP telephony will introduce, the quality does not suffer."
