2007 to be 'interesting' year for VoIP

The telephony market is set to be shaken up this year, according to analysts, due to computer giant Microsoft's moves into the field.

Recent estimates from Infonetics showed that sales of IP PBX systems have already increased three per cent in the first quarter of the year and up 76 per cent on 2006's figures, showing the huge growth of the market in a short time.

But the up-coming introduction of Microsoft's unified communications system Office Communications Server 2007 may impact this trend.

"A number of important developments are sure to inject excitement into the enterprise telephony market this year," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research.

Commenting on Microsoft's impending OCS 2007 launch, he said: "The question on everybody's mind is: what is the market impact? Will buyers abandon their PBXs in favour of a pure unified communications solution? We do not think so, at least for the short term."

In addition to the moves by Microsoft into VoIP services, Mr Machowinski said that competition was beginning to bubble up between the other market-players once again, particularly in America where there has been much speculation of a takeover of communications provider Avaya.