Unified communications and convergence have been predicted to change the voice game for years now – and changes now surfacing could make 2010 the year that actually happens.
Enhanced mobility, the consumerization of enterprise technologies, and the bundling of cloud applications are driving more faster adoption of UC in the enterprise. And that means that hosted VoIP is becoming part of a larger conversation – casting in doubt its future as a standalone business.
“We’ve seen unified communications really starting to take off,” Charles Studt, IntelePeer Inc.'s vice president of product management. “Last year was still focused on ‘how do we cut costs.’ Now, organizations are more interested in providing a way to have more efficient enterprise collaboration, video and ways to better integrate with enterprise work flow.”
To meet the shift, IntelePeer is working with Microsoft to enable the hosted unified communications solutions delivered from the cloud by Microsoft’s channel partners. The IntelePeer Voice Peering Network has been qualified to provide SIP trunking for Microsoft OCS.
“As we move into unified communications, hosted VoIP will be just a component for businesses,” said Louis Hayner, chief sales officer at VoIP provider Alteva LLC. Alteva sees its biggest growth opportunity in offering Microsoft Corp.’s UC system, Office Communications Server, or OCS, as a white-label cloud service for other providers.
“When you’re averaging 62 percent percent growth over the last 5 years like we are, devoting the resources to do the OCS deployment is a challenge, and we are not alone in this struggle. One of the biggest reasons why we are so excited about our white label OCS program is to help fellow VoIP service providers who do not have the resources to address their UC strategy. We know that as a VoIP service provider, formulating a UC strategy is critical in 2010 or else you’ll get left behind,” explained Hayner.
On the Cusp of a Transition
Low upfront costs have made hosted VoIP a growth area in the recession. As the recession lifts, many believe the low-cost hosted IP delivery model will still win out in the end because of other attractive qualities, like instantaneous moves, adds and changes, and the ability to manage the system online. The thing is, what’s being hosted and delivered is poised to rapidly change, as cloud services become more accepted.
Cloud computing and virtualization will also take on a more visible role as vendors release more formal offerings, according to Paul McMillan, director of unified communications technical vision and strategy at Siemens Enterprise Communications. He predicts that in 2010, “the cloud-based transformation of the enterprise desktop and the enterprise workspace emerges due to increased reliance on collaboration and social networking applications.”
“Hosted VoIP as a standalone service will continue to be good for smaller enterprises that are not looking for the latest functionality,” said Bumbernick. “But that vision in most businesses is slowly being broken down – telephony and data are coming together so rapidly. What the cloud does from a data perspective is going to change how they look at hosted VoIP – it’s now on an island. As convergence happens, we’ll see more and more one united network, with blended voice and data applications.”