MARKET REVIEW
www.comms-dealer.com
Growing uptake puts ho
Hosted VoIP is moving into mainstream business communications, according to the testimonies of key figures on the hosted playing field.
H
osted VoIP is now more accepted as a means to
deliver business critical voice applications, and the early adoption phase is firmly moving into an era of steep growth. “A few years ago pitches for new business would involve a majority of PBX resellers, and we would have to explain to the prospective customer the virtues of hosted VoIP as opposed to CPE,” said Gary Pryor, COO, Voicenet Solutions. “Now our competitors in new business meetings are almost wholly made up of hosted VoIP suppliers. The hosted IP market is rapidly maturing. It has moved from being an early adopter type product to a genuine alternative to a PBX system.”
One of the forces behind this trend is the ongoing improvement in business Internet connectivity. “We are seeing business grade connectivity products improve in terms of QoS, and critically reducing in cost while providing customers with service level guarantees,” Pryor added. “Due to the nature of hosted IP, feature rich applications can be easily added to customise business telephony solutions. The
range of the quality of these applications is rapidly evolving and taking customers into a fully converged communications environment by using everything from FMC, call recording and remote working. The needs of the future business environment match up very nicely with the manner in which hosted IP telephony is evolving.”
According to Pryor, Voicenet Solutions is experiencing ‘huge interest’ in hosted IP Telephony. “Our figures are up year-on-year and demand is increasing especially from the enterprise sector and the FTSE 500. So much so that our projections for the year are to double our current extension numbers,” he revealed.
Voicenet’s key partners in its hosted IP offering are Broadsoft (software source and support), Viatel (partner for un- contended connectivity), BT (number sourcing IPX porting and PSTN traffic), Gamma Telecom (number and PSTN traffic), and murphx (managed DSL connectivity). These elements combine in a way that enables Voicenet Solutions to be a single source for all IP Telephony products,
Our rivals in new
business meetings are almost wholly made up of hosted VoIP suppliers
Gary Pryor
services and components. “Our expanding product portfolio includes hosted VoIP, VNiMobile – a mobile VoIP FMC solution, SIP gateway, hosted call recording, QoS, broadband, disaster recovery and IP phones,” said Pryor.
With access to better connectivity and
converged solutions, hosted VoIP is primed to take on the mass market. Voice will purely be seen as an application that sits within the converged business tool, and while dealers understand the benefits they find it hard to move from a capex purchase model that generates cash to a revenue-based model that grows. “It comes down to how they fund that transition and motivate their sales
forces,” added Pryor. “We have different commission models depending on the resellers’ needs, offering upfront income or long-term revenue.”
Hosted VoIP offers great flexibility in that it can accommodate application bolt-ons and additional services so easily. This is the key reason why hosted services will prevail, according to Pryor. “Growing demand for more integration and reduction in costs will naturally steer businesses to hosted services,” he said. “Customers will demand all of their key business systems to integrate and operate in the way they want it to.”
Improved features, familiarity and greater customer understanding,
combined with significant improvements in the availability of high quality Internet circuits are all driving growth, observes Tom Fellowes, sales Director at Spitfire. “Greater customer understanding of how IP works mean clients readily understand the benefits of buying hosted,” said Fellowes. “The availability and lower cost of Ethernet and high speed DSL products, together with new high speed, guaranteed voice premium DSL circuits, mean hosted VoIP can offer an ISDN30e equivalent service.”
Channel players can differentiate themselves by offering the complete package, as clients do not want two separate suppliers for what is seen as a single service. Quality
Myriad. Tailored Inbound Number services through our robust and established portal
Call 0800 915 5298 or visit
www.kcom.com/channel-partners
44 COMMS DEALER JUNE 2010
www.comms-dealer.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64