The sub 50 extension market gets a shake up

ICON is forecasting a shake up in the sub 50 extension market over the next few months as it rolls out the recently released version 2 of its Wave IP IP-PBX and re-launchs it at a price point which is hard to beat.  Mark Shane commented

“In a period of price increases and belt tightening this goes against the trend in the market.  We don’t know any other vendor who has taken the bold step of cutting dealer prices”

Wave IP competes in the sub 50 extension market and on a feature by feature comparison basis there are very few IP-PBX solutions in this market which offer an out of the box UC solution.   Vendors are offering solutions which are positioned as full UC solutions but many of the features which make the IP-PBX a useful solution for the business come at an additional cost. 

The trend to VoIP is well established and vendor’s product lines reflect this.  However, in the case of UC and collaboration these trends are still in the early stages and many vendors have not built these features into their product as standard issue.  Vertical Communications has always been a pace setter in terms of offering complete solutions and in the case of UC and collaboration it is still the market leader in terms of providing these as standard in its Wave IP IP-PBX solution. Mark commented

“The release of Wave 2.0 at the back end of 2010 was expected to boost sales for our Channel Partners in 2011.  Now with the price point revised to compete directly with the popular solutions in the sub 50 extension market we are planning for a busy time in 2011.”

Wave 2.0 packs even more UC features into the Wave IP box including synchronisation with Outlook, mobile extensions, instant messaging, integrated softphone and personal status.  These really do push the Wave IP solution to the top of the pile as far as features go and with the relaunch at the new price point ICON expects to see increasing sales of this powerful IP-PBX solution.

ICON bucks trend with Wave IP-PBX price drop

Price changes which came into effect on the 4th January this year have made the Vertical Wave IP solution one of the few solutions in the market which offers the end user true value for money, is a deal winner for the Channel Partner and, most importantly, protects the Channel Partners profit margin.   



Riding the Wave

If you are in the business of selling telephone solutions the medium  term outlook is for very little growth.  The forecast is for around 3% this year.  Vendors are responding by offering attractively featured solutions which provide a partial or full UC solution but more often than not the “attractive” features are optional and mean additional cost for the end user.  So unless the user has a pressing need for these features they are a not deal winners and are a hard sell.

ICON is going to change all this.  ICON is offering Channel Partners a very competitive Wave IP-PBX and UC package which is designed to generate sales and protect profit margin. 

Wave IP has always been a leader in terms of features but now, with the launch of the 2011 Channel Partner package, Wave IP is price competitive (and in some bids the price leader) with most of the popular business IP-PBX solutions.  Wave IP now offers Channel Partners a low cost highly featured UC solution which can blow the opposition away.



Unified Comms simplified



Because of Wave’s “all in one box” philosophy, the customer gets an easy to use CTI Viewpoint with easy access to visual voicemail, call recording, call logging and instant messaging. These features are all included as standard with no additional cost or need for any further servers or operating systems.  Add to that the optional fully functional, skills routed call centre, and it is easy to see why Wave IP is an unbeatable package.

When compared with a like-for-like PBX (e.g. with voicemail, call recording, CTI), Wave IP usually comes out on top for both price & functionality.  That said, ICON is very aware that in many cases, Channel Partners are selling to a customer whose only requirement is for “a good telephone system” and who does not need the complete package of attractive and powerful Wave features.

However, in such cases it is not unusually to find that even when the Wave is on a par price wise with the competitor’s low featured solution, it wins the deal because the customer can see the value in having a bundle of UC features included at no extra cost.

Mark Shane, sales manager at ICON commented

“We took a long hard look at the market back in late 2010 and it stood to reason that if most of our Wave Channel Partners were pitching against the usual PBX suspects, we needed to bring the pricing of the Wave IP solution into the same range whilst keeping the features that make it a deal winner…and that is exactly what we have done!.”