IP voice dominates new line market

VoIP has crossed the line as an emerging technology and is now the mainstream choice for business voice services according to a paper by technology research group In-Stat. The Arizona-based group says in the first half of last year 11.1 million IP lines were shipped, equaling over 80 per cent of total lines shipped for that period.

The widespread acceptance of VoIP comes after the first round of technical and operational challenges have been met and the business case well proved for IP versus traditional telephony.

The maturing and business acceptance of VoIP has coincided with the major vendor battle Gounod shifting to the unified communications front. The arrival of Microsoft as an aggressive player in the IP comms sector likely to fire up competition (and hopefully pricing) among the traditional IP heavy weights, Cisco, Avaya and Nortel.

Cisco pulled away from its rivals in the second half of 2007 and, with CEO John Chambers telling the world he is not going anywhere, looks set to power on in 2008 --even though Cisco lost a couple of top-level executives late in the year as it became apparent the CEO spot was not about to be vacated. Top development officer, Charles Giancarlo, left for private equity group Silver Lake Capital in December. 

For more:
- IP Continues Out pacing Traditional PBXs Release [1]

Related articles:
Cisco leads Q3 with 11 per cent growth Article [2]
Cisco prepares for IP Video Article [3]