SMBs To Spend $6Bn In On-Premise Voice Communications

SMBs worldwide are on track to invest $6 billion in on-premise voice communications systems in 2008—including IP-PBX/converged systems, pure TDM/Keysystem, multi-line analog/digital and DECT systems. This is up about 7 percent from $5.6 billion in 2006, according to the latest study by Access Markets International (AMI)-Partners.

“The global IP-PBX/converged system segment is set to grow from $2.77 billion in 2006 to $4.32 billion in 2012,” says Sanjeev Aggarwal, AMI-Partners’ New York-based vice president for SMB Infrastructure Solutions. “That’s a compound annual growth rate of 7.7 percent between 2006 and 2012. The encouraging results from the early migrations from TDM-based PBXs (including key systems) to IP-based PBXs have positively influenced worldwide demand.”

This SMB market segment is becoming fiercely competitive as vendors are developing and implementing solutions specifically designed for SMBs. On the other hand, AMI interviews with several SMBs, who have already implemented these solutions, point to the payback period being usually less than a year.

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Considering current SMB priorities and the economic environment, the key to boosting SMB migration to IP-based voice systems is helping SMBs achieve an RoI more quickly. The key benefits are low toll charges, higher employee productivity with unified messaging, improved revenues and reduced costs through use of unified communications.