VOIP Market Shift Presents New Opportunities Around Support Service Spending

IDC:

An evolutionary shift in the worldwidel VOIP equipment market will push network support services spending to $1.27 billion in 2010. The walls between telephony and IT will continue to erode as network equipment vendors move from proprietary hardware and software solutions and toward software running over dedicated servers. Traditionally, networking vendors have experienced very little competition for support services due to the proprietary nature of their products. But, as the market shifts toward software solutions running on general purpose servers, a slew of third-party support services providers and systems vendors have an opportunity to provide support services for the hardware.

As the IP PBX market shifts from proprietary systems to software applications running on a general purpose servers, the model for support services will begin to look more like the model for other mission-critical software applications. In this model, the VOIP vendors will be responsible for supporting the software in partnership with a systems vendor or a third party will be responsible for supporting the hardware.

• To capitalize on emerging opportunities, server vendors should look to partner with network equipment vendors

• As this market shift advances, VOIP equipment vendors will need to evolve from a hardware-centric support model to a software support model.

worldwidel VOIP Support Services 2006–2010 Forecast and Analysis Publ 20061017