With the emergence of new management tools and frank discussions about cost, one thing was clear at VON: VoIP is rapidly maturing.
The crowd that flocked to the recent Voice on the Network conference in Boston found some frank discussion about IP PBX costs and interesting new management tools.
In an analyst panel on enterprise VoIP, Gartner analyst David Fraley asked how many vendors in the room claim their products save money. A bunch raised their hands. Then he asked how many tell customers it costs more? Only one hand went up. His conclusion: “There are lots of liars in the room.”
There are some savings, Fraley said, but if your network is 4 to 5 years old you’ll have to make a 100% forklift upgrade to accommodate VoIP. Even if your gear is new, you’ll still need to do lots of tuning, Fraley said. “There is a lot of heavy lifting in here. But I’m still a big believer.”
Ronald Gruia, a senior strategic analyst with Frost & Sullivan, estimates that for every dollar of voice equipment you put in you’ll need to invest about $3 worth of data equipment. He also notes that endpoints still represent about 50% of VoIP investments.
IDC senior analyst Steve Elliot said the fact that you typically need to upgrade the data network makes it hard to do a fair ROI analysis of IP PBXs. He also notes that management tools are still somewhat lacking.
There was one vendor at the show, however, talking about an interesting-sounding management tool for Cisco voice environments.
Clarus Systems has developed software that can be used to take control and test remote VoIP phones. While many other VoIP test products are snooping at the packet level looking at things like jitter, this tool actually reaches inside Cisco phones to see if they work properly.
The beauty of Cisco’s CallManager is it is infinitely flexible, says Michael Smith, vice president of product marketing and management at Clarus. “But that flexibility means it’s easy to hose yourself.”
The ClarusIPC Assurance software runs on a server and works with CallManager to locate phones and then reach inside to test everything from configuration to feature set, calling privileges, button allocation and the ability to place calls and reach voice mail.
Smith says customers will be able to use the product – which is still in beta – to check systems as they are rolled out and to help troubleshoot environments as equipment is upgraded and moved around.
With the emergence of these types of tools and frank discussions about cost, one thing was clear at VON: VoIP is rapidly maturing.
