Approximately 83.7 per cent of lines shipped were IP capable, out of which around 4.3 million were IP users with some kind of IP end point. Most large vendors have developed an IP capability within their systems and in a race against time, vendors with considerable installed base are marketing their IP portfolio rather aggressively.
Notably, vendors in the European business telephony markets have stepped up their efforts to endorse session initiation protocol (SIP). As the margins in the network continue to decline, vendors are being forced to look at new growth opportunities in the way of enhancing their application suite and adding business process integration functionality. In the real world of multi-vendor networks, standards such as SIP play a pivotal role in enabling these new opportunities.
However, increasing price pressures remain a key barrier to the further growth of the European business telephony markets. Despite the 6.2 per cent year on year (y-o-y) growth in lines shipments, revenues declined by 0.2 per cent y-o-y. There is also the threat of alternate business models such as managed and hosted service eating into the on-premise proposition.
"Microsoft's entry into the unified communication space has given a fillip to the software based solution market," explains Banerjee. "The entry of Microsoft has not only made software-based solutions a de-facto alternative to hardware based PBX, but also has pushed the case for enterprise convergence through unified communication."
Developing a strong ecosystem is crucial for vendors to survive the ongoing transformation in the European business telephony markets. This apart, vendors will also have to actively endorse open technologies.
