* Recent product developments show vendors optimistic about market
Our colleague Joe McGarvey, principal analyst for IP services infrastructure at Current Analysis, recently wrote an advisory report about the VoIP application server market we’d like to recommend to our readers. Today we’ll cover some of the report’s highlights. McGarvey opens his analysis by observing that, “despite significant indications of a declining [VoIP application server] market . . . network equipment makers are somehow optimistic about the future.”
The report asks and answers three key questions. On one hand McGarvey notes that over the past decade, “businesses that rely on premises-based communications equipment, rather than network-based or hosted services, have held steady at approximately 90%.” He also points out that Broadsoft’s leading market position was gained through consolidation, suggesting that consolidation typifies a market in decline. Furthermore, Synergy Research Group indicates flat revenue for the overall market through Q1 2009.
On the other hand, McGarvey points out that the “hosted VoIP market is on the cusp of a surge . . . with recent product development activity [from] some of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment makers, including work on stand-alone SIP-compliant application products from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel.” One reason for the flurry of product and marketing activity may be that, “as operators begin to implement service-oriented architecture and other IT oriented technologies, as well as architectural models such as IMS and SDP, the role of the stand-alone application server becomes increasingly important.”
“Application servers are also increasingly taking on functions and capabilities such as supplying Web services APIs and handling mobility management, that are gaining in importance to operators as strategic differentiators and potential sources of new revenue,” McGarvey adds
He concludes his report with some recommendations for vendors in the market and some advice to the carriers about how to take advantage of the existing and changing market conditions. You can read the full report here. Our thanks to McGarvey and Current Analysis for sharing this analysis.
