UC not affecting IP telephony sales

A study by IDC has revealed that the growth of IP telephony lines has not been affected by the unified communications (UC) solutions from IBM and Microsoft.

There were 30.9 million shipments of IP telephony lines in 2007.

As IBM and Microsoft had shipped their first UC solutions by the end of 2007, "IP telephony vendors no longer had to speculate about what effect the desktop-based collaborative environments with IP telephony would have," said senior analyst in IDC's enterprise networks group, Nora Freedman.

IDC believes that the biggest threat to the IP PBX market will be open source IP PBX, hosted VoIP services and desktop collaborative environments, while UC Mobility solutions threaten VoIP phones.

The company recommended that IP PBX vendors should strengthen their relationship with IBM and Microsoft, while IP Phone vendors should work out how UC software clients might affect their phone sales.

One of IDC's services is the provision of market intelligence in the information technology and telecommunications markets.