The Growing VoIP Market: Where the Momentum Has Shifted

VoIP has been around long enough to have made it from “emerging technology” to the norm. Much like the Internet did for encyclopedias, VoIP is making land lines seem archaic. Companies large and small are opting for internet phone systems over wired PBX because:

• It’s less expensive, particularly for international calls
• It provides equal quality
• Its reliability has improved dramatically
• It’s much more scalable
• It’s faster to deploy
• It’s easier to maintain
• It requires little IT help

VoIP allows even the smallest companies to compete with the big guys when it comes to communication. It has leveled the playing field and enables companies to afford enterprise-level call features once reserved only for the big spenders. The VoIP market is getting crowded with providers promising quality, reliability and lots of fancy features. As with the computer industry, the attractive price point and service become the differentiating factor.

What is this all-access pass doing to the VoIP market?

How Fast Is Fast?

Infonetics Research recently released a report that found between 2012 and 2013, the overall global business VoIP market grew 11 percent. By 2018, it forecasts the worldwide growth will reach $88 billion.

Hosted, cloud and managed services are growing at an even faster pace, as is unified communications. These facets of VoIP are gaining momentum as companies are finding offloading the maintenance of the phone network to the provider quite attractive. With tighter budgets and fewer IT resources, the cost of third-party hosting is worth every penny.

Infonetics reported the sales of hosted PBX and Unified Communications (UC) rose 13 percent in 2013 over 2012. The business VoIP market is expected to grow from $24 billion in 2013 to $35 billion by 2018. According to another source, MarketsandMarkets, the UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) market will grow from $13 billion in 2014 to $23.34 billion in 2019, just over 12% growth compounding annually.

To put all of these statistics into perspective, the tablet market is forecasted by IDC to grow 19.4 percent in 2014, actually declining from previous years. While the VoIP and UC industries aren’t quite at these levels, their steadily increasing double-digit growth rates are impressive.

What It Means for You

The good news for any sized organization is you have options. With more players in the field, it will become apparent which ones can consistently provide the features, functionality and service companies require and which ones will struggle to compete. There’s still plenty of growth potential, as only 50 percent of businesses still use other connections besides VoIP. As long as the numbers prove revenue can be made, providers will abound.

ShoreTel’s business is the phone business so we offer clients the choice of PBX, VoIP, and mobile solutions that can be virtualized, managed, hosted, on-premises or cloud-based with centralized or distributed Unified Communications. We integrate with leading CRM and ERP applications and offer a host of features that make your phone system work for you. With so many options, clients can customize their phone network to meet their exact needs both now and in the future.

- See more at: http://blog.shoretel.com/2014/09/growing-voip-market-momentum-shifted/#more-7261

On-premise business phone systems swap old equipment for new thinking.

Designed from the ground up to streamline the work of administrators and end users alike, the built-in unified communications (UC) capabilities of ShoreTel's business phone systems are transforming the way people work.

ShoreTel integrates communication features such as video conferencing, IM, mobility and online collaboration into a single easy-to-use IP PBX solution. Eliminating separate tools is only one way that ShoreTel's brilliantly simple VoIP phone systems help boost productivity and reduce costs.

Learn more about ShoreTel's on-premises IP PBX phone system features below.  

Virtualized Deployments.

ShoreTel applications, including call control, contact center, collaboration and system administration, can be installed on physical and/or virtual servers residing in a data center or on-premises. Centralized or distributed – ShoreTel customers can leverage the IP PBX deployment model that best suits their specific IT environment.

Built to leverage the power of VoIP telephony.

Thanks to its ingenious purpose-built single-image architecture, your premise-based ShoreTel IP phone system scales and grows across as many sites, or as many continents, as you need. From ShoreTel Director, a single browser-based interface, IT staff can manage the entire VoIP  phone system with plug-and-play ease. And because it is an open system, it integrates with popular business applications, enabling you to get more out of your most valuable assets: people and information.

Ease is built-in, too.

End users don't just get new phones on their desks: they get a brilliantly simple new way to approach their work and team collaboration: ShoreTel Communicator, an intuitive application designed to streamline communication management. Not in the office? No problem. A ShoreTel IP phone system allows users to use VoIP phones, mobile phones, or any phone connected to the public phone network as if it were their own extension, enabling them to work when, where, and how they want.

99.999% availability for 100% peace of mind.

The ShoreTel distributed architecture is incorporated into a unique on-site, appliance-based, IP PBX platform with no single point of failure: each switch and site functions as an independent call processor. In the event of wide area network (WAN) failure, the phone system continues to place and receive calls on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

The lowest TCO in the industry.

Our total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis tool can show you why ShoreTel's on-premises IP PBX phone system offers the lowest TCO in the industry. Many customers report a return of investment within a year. Over the long term, the unified communications tools of a ShoreTel business VoIP telephone system reduce costs company-wide by streamlining business processes, putting critical information in reach, and eliminating both missed calls and the need for expensive third-party conference services.

ShoreTel Connect combines the best of on-site and cloud phone systems

Let a hybrid cloud solution maximize your investment in a ShoreTel on-site phone system

The growing popularity of software as a service (SaaS) reflects the convenience, scalability, and security of  cloud-based applications like email, business process apps and storage. Virtual phone systems delivered completely via the cloud, like ShoreTel Sky, are growing rapidly year-over-year as businesses recognize the time and money saved when application upgrades, maintenance, and end-user support are handled by the service provider, not by internal IT staff.

As a visionary provider of IP PBX phone systems and unified communications applications, ShoreTel sees the future of communications architecture as combining the best of two delivery methods: a hybrid cloud communications platform that delivers the resiliency, control and availability of an on-site “hardware-based” phone system with the immediacy, ease and flexibility of virtual PBX applications delivered from the cloud.

Download the ShoreTel Connect Solution Brief now.

ShoreTel Connect is a gateway that integrates ShoreTel’s on-premises phone systems with applications-as-a-service delivery from the cloud. Now, you can boost worker productivity by giving them immediate access to ShoreTel Sky Scribe and ShoreTel Sky Fax, leveraging your current investment by adding new phone system functionality with no additional phone system capital expense.

The proof of success is in increased employee productivity. ShoreTel Connect for ShoreTel Sky services integrate time-saving tools that truly unify your business communications; read on for more details.

ShoreTel Sky Scribe makes voice messages visible

ShoreTel Connect for ShoreTel Sky Scribe is an integrated voicemail transcription service that converts voice messages into text files and emails them automatically. The convenience of being able to check voice messages silently and quickly is indispensable to multi-taskers and those who value efficiency. Not only does it reduce message retrieval time, it creates highly useful caller records as well.
Download ShoreTel Sky Scribe solution overview

ShoreTel Sky Fax adds more convenience

ShoreTel Sky Fax accommodates and enhances traditional faxing by incorporating the feature into our hosted phone system functionality. Users can send and receive faxes from their desktop or mobile devices, streamlining the process and removing the dependence on standalone fax machines.

ShoreTel Connect secure services in the cloud

Hybrid communications solutions that serve applications from the cloud are new to many IT managers. With ShoreTel Connect, potential security and privacy concerns can be addressed through superior system design and network operations.

Extend your phone system to include employee mobile devices

Workplace flexibility can drive productivity−if you have the right phone system.

ShoreTel Mobility enables businesses of all sizes to integrate their employees' favorite smartphones and tablets with their existing phone system−securely, simply and cost-effectively. Employees can BYOD (bring your own device) and stay connected from any location around the world on any network—voice over Wi-Fi, voice over 3G/4G, or cellular.

ShoreTel Mobility gives iOS and Android devices the same productivity-boosting features that unify communications for workers in the office—like video conferencing with room-based systems, peer-to-peer video, web conferencing, calendar access, CRM integration, instant messaging and presence—as well as desk phone features like extension dialing, conference calling, company directory, hold and call transfer.

And ShoreTel Mobility allows users to separate their business and personal communications on a single device, a "dual persona" solution that maintains separate identities. Employees will never give a customer their personal mobile number again; instead their company number follows them from desk to field. And managers can rest easy knowing that customer lists stay with the company, not the employee.

Peer-to-peer video calling erases distances

ShoreTel Mobility improves connections with enterprise-wide video calling on iOS and Android phones and mobile devices. And support for room-based video  conferencing means you can stay connected with your entire team, no matter where in the world you might be.

Join conferences with one-button ease

ShoreTel Mobility's "Today" screen shows scheduled audio conference calls, with a simple "Join" button to connect immediately--and GoToMeeting and WebEx calls are supported, too. And ShoreTel Mobility supports ShoreTel Conferencing,enabling  iOS users to participate fully in collaboration sessions, viewing spreadsheets, presentations and work sessions from others' desktops.

Designed to slash the high cost of enterprise mobility.

ShoreTel Mobility’s patent-pending least-cost routing not only routes cellular calls via the cheapest path inside and outside the enterprise, but it is also one of the only solutions to use VoIP over WLAN on leading smartphones and tablets from Apple and Android, driving international costs down while increasing user productivity.

No more signal disruptions inside the office

Never lose a mobile call connection when you walk inside your building again. With ShoreTel Mobility, dropped calls due to building design and materials that inhibit cellular radio transmission are a thing of the past. ShoreTel Mobility helps your organization take control of in-building coverage problems by leveraging Wireless LAN networks to provide wireless coverage across your entire enterprise.

Mobility with security in mind.

ShoreTel Mobility secures mobile enterprise communications by leveraging proven standards for authentication and encryption with X.509 digital certificates and AES-256 encryption. The solution preserves both simplicity and maximum security by automatically recognizing when the user is outside the enterprise firewall, and automatically launching in response an application-layer SSL VPN.

A desk phone for the mobile generation

Your workforce can go mobile but still have a home base with the ShoreTel Dock. Workers just click their iOS device (iPad or iPhone) into ShoreTel Dock and they've got a fully featured desk phone at their fingertips - and their mobile device stays fully charged. The ShoreTel Dock has all the benefits of a desk phone (audio quality, always-on power and ergonomic comfort) , powered by ShoreTel Mobility's full-featured UC.

If your company prefers to leave phone system management to the experts, ShoreTel Sky is the perfect solution.

  Backed by ShoreTel’s award-winning unified communications leadership, ShoreTel Sky is your best choice for reliable, flexible, hosted business phone services.

ShoreTel’s end-to-end cloud phone system ensures a unified user experience, bringing together ShoreTel-designed IP 400 series desk phones, ShoreTel-developed IP PBX applications and business process integrations, and ShoreTel’s world-class service and support.

The inherent flexibility of a SaaS phone system allows companies to add unified communications, contact center capabilities, and CRM and ERP integrations as they need them. ShoreTel Sky delivers a phone system experience that businesses love.

Hosted VoIP, based on our ShoreTel Sky Call Conductor software, forms the heart of the ShoreTel Sky experience, and our 400 series IP phones deliver seamless integration with all ShoreTel cloud applications. Since the solutions are all from ShoreTel, with no third-party devices, our support teams have intimate knowledge of all components and are able to deliver superior service.  You can deploy ShoreTel Sky with confidence, knowing that your phones will always be "future proof" and functionally integrated with ShoreTel cloud applications and easily supported by our service organization in the future.

Unified Communications

hosted business VoIP with unified communications services (UCaaS) bundles together a variety of easy-to-use technologies – including unified messaging, IM, presence, and mobility – that integrate data and applications with the solution's voice capabilities. Users can communicate, and collaborate, however and from wherever, on the device of their choice.

Contact Center

The integrated hosted contact center capabilities of ShoreTel’s cloud communications solution extend this functionality to an entire organization. Features include: full ACD control, prioritized skill routing, configurable hold treatment, and an audio library which lets call center supervisors easily store and update their recordings.

Integrated Applications

The cloud-based communications solution offers tight integration with leading CRM, ERP, and applicant-tracking software, enabling performance-enhancing functionality such as "click-to-dial," and screen pops on inbound calls that foster a more personalized customer experience. An API also allows for integration with other businesses processes or homegrown applications.

Additional Services

The inherent flexibility of the solution's core technology permits organizations to add services to meet their needs – and those of their customers. These services include: call recording, on-demand conferencing, voice-to-email transcription, and fax-to-email (both incoming and outbound).

Expert Help

Because the help desk is included, ShoreTel Cloud Services take the burden off of IT resources. Simply pressing the “?” key on one of our desktop phones will open a ticket in our CRM system, and can directly connect your users to our support engineers.


For more information call 952-278-2400