From the Editor’s Desk: VoIP gets down to business

Some of the most interesting developments in VoIP are happening outside of the enterprise. Just as Web 2.0 phenomena such as social networking are making their way into business, in the future so will many of today's VoIP technologies, now common in the SMB or consumer space, be seen in larger enterprises. Hosted PBXs, cheap calling options like Skype: large enterprises may shirk them now, only to watch their smaller competitors grow using these and other dynamic tools. The shift will come as young people join the workforce and expect the kind of power, flexibility, and services that ‘cloud-based' IP networks can provide. An appealing alternative to the traditional PSTN, to converged networks, or even to a completely overhauled in-house VoIP system, is to subscribe to a hosted PBX provider. In this issue we take a look at the Canadian reality for hosted PBXs (see Canadian market for hosted PBX gains traction), and find out why this solution appeals to the SMB market, and where it stands vis a vis larger enterprise deployments. We then take a quick dip into the ongoing debate around traffic shaping (CAIP wants Bell to lift veil of secrecy), and find that the practice can both help and hinder VoIP, depending on whose side the provider is on. In this issue we also assess how VoIP and other features of IP-based networks can make telework more viable to companies and customers, and also more satisfying to employees (VoIP changes the game for telework and call centres). And we take a peek into the future, where we find that vendors may end up selling less gear into enterprises, and instead focus more on the carrier and provider market, because value will increasingly be driven off of services coming from the ‘cloud' (VoIP gear routes to services). Finally, Telemanagement offers up some advice on what to look out for when migrating to VoIP in house (VoIP migration best practices). This publication is about business, but the business of VoIP involves much more than what is sold to large enterprises. It's worth taking a gander at how VoIP lives outside of the enterprise, to see how it functions as a service, and how this disrupts common network mentalities, while also adding power and functionality. Sooner or later, many SMBs grow up, and it's more than likely that many of tomorrow's big companies will be talking on someone else's gear.

From the Editor’s Desk: VoIP gets down to business

News | May 28, 2008

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