IP phone switches seizing market share

Phone systems based on IP have been calling enterprises for several years now, and many IT and telecommunications managers are now answering, according to market research company Dell'Oro Group.

More mature products and support for existing phones are helping IP PBXes (private branch exchanges) move into the mainstream, said Dell'Oro analyst Steve Raab, who wrote a report on the topic issued Wednesday.

Worldwide shipments of IP PBX gear, measured in phone lines, soared 86 percent in the first quarter of 2004 from a year earlier, and jumped 13 percent from the previous quarter, Dell'Oro reported. Meanwhile, line shipments of traditional PBXes fell 9 percent from the previous quarter, the Redwood City, California, company said.

IP PBXes are servers that treat voice calls as data traffic and use software to provide corporate calling features such as extensions, hold functions and voice mail. They allow enterprises to consolidate their PBX functions in one location, cutting deployment management costs, and help pave a path toward multimodal communications involving voice, text and video, Raab said.

View: Read more at InfoWorld