'Bad economy good for VoIP' theory harpooned

Will a slower economy pump VoIP growth faster during 2009?  This might be one of those "The Internet is going to crash" balloons.

Don Witt of cyLogistic posits that competition between businesses would push them to cut costs, and the easy way to cut costs is (in theory) to go to VoIP. Using some magic math and a graph, Witt says the VoIP growth curve has been "pulled down" by 6 to 12 months or more, and VoIP sales may increase 2 or 3 times more than previous forecasts predicted, with next year's VoIP growth jumping from 4 percent, to 8 or 12 percent.

Voxilla harpoons the idea by noting that there's a large up-front cost of making the move to VoIP, either by buying (i.e. capital expense) new hardware or contracting for a hosted service, plus the costs of training the existing workforce to use a new phone system. It thinks VoIP will continue to grow, but cash-strapped businesses aren't going to dump existing gear to buy new VoIP hardware in 2009.

For more:
- Voxilla discusses theory, harpoons it. Article.

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