Is the Economy good for VoIP?
Has the economy hit VoIP? My thinking is that it has and in a very positive way for both
integrators and voip service providers. Throughout my career I have always been amazed at
the number of traditional key telephone systems sold into the small business segment of the
telephone equipment market place. If you added up the numbers as published by the
publically reporting companies in this segment, extrapolated an average SBE equipment size
requirement you would conclude that every man, woman and child in this country already
owns a telephone system! So where do all the new SBE phone system come from? Having said
that, this number is getting harder to calculate as the companies that you could track in this
segment (e.g.. Vodavi, Comdial, etc) have morphed into something else and generally as a
direct result of the increasing acceptance of VoIP in that market segment (e.g. Covad,
Packet8, Vonage et. Al). The economy even when it contracts, causes companies that survive
to change their shape and size. We have witnessed a growing demand for companies seeking
to spin off a branch office as a standalone business. If you have a CISCO Call Manager, for
example, and you were running SRST at the branch office, we are servicing requests to
convert the branch to a standalone CCME. Business Partnerships dissolve, the partners create
new entities and split a perfectly good ShoreTel IPBX in two! Service providers in general,
seem to be showing increases in VoIP revenue segments, specifically in the SIP
environment. Cbeyond(CBEY) seems to be trading at near its 52 week high. Generally, my
thinking is that VoIP is a good place to be no matter which way the economy moves!