If you had to guess what percentage of businesses large and small, buy hosted IP telephony services, and what percentage buy phone systems, what would you guess?
In Western Europe, three premises phone systems are purchased for every hosted IP telephony service, according to IDC.
By 2015, CPE-based voice connections still will represent 73 percent of the total voice connections in Western Europe, IDC predicts.
There were 27,681,310 CPE-based voice business connections in 2011, and this will continue to be the most predominant business connection type in Western Europe throughout the forecast period, IDC forecasts.
The fastest growing host-based voice connection type will continue to be “multi-tenant IP Centrex” connections. In 2015, multi-tenant IP Centrex connections will represent around 63 percent of the total host-based business voice connections. That would correspond to what people generally understand hosted IP telephony services to provide.
Voice connections for “hosted dedicated IP PBX” environments will be primarily sold to or implemented in large and medium-sized businesses, IDC says. That would correspond to managed IP PBX services.
In 2011, the number of voice over broadband connections totaled 8,165,960, and by 2015 this business voice connection type is expected to represent around 70 percent of the total public network-based voice connections, IDC predicts.
“The anticipated double-dip recession and the rising uncertainty over the future of the eurozone have been the primary factors for businesses in the region to change their buying behaviors or to reduce the number of business voice connections installed to date,” said Isabel Montero, senior research analyst, unified communications and collaboration, IDC EMEA.
In the U.S. market, that same general ratio seems to have held, as well, though there have been some signs of movement since 2008.
IP telephony adoption increased dramatically, from 17 percent in 2008 to 27 percent in 2010, an increase of 59 percent, among small and mid-sized companies, according to Consultant Dan Sachar of Inzenka, a management consultancy.