Will the market ever recover to the 2008 pre-recession sales volumes?
Mark Shane, Sales Director at ICON, is bullish about the
future of the CPE PBX market. When asked
about the medium term outlook for the channel Mark commented;
“Will the CPE PBX sales volumes reach
and exceed 2008 levels? Yes, most certainly they will. Will the future CPE
market be the same as the pre-recession 2008 market? No it won’t”
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| Growth in the market is expected |
ICON is confident that the CPE PBX market will recover to
its pre-recession levels. That much is
certain. What is unknown is how long it
will be before it reaches its pre-recession levels and what the market will
look like in the future. The future CPE PBX market will be completely different
to the market pre-recession.
Powerful trends
There are powerful
trends in the environment which are shaping the future business environment. BYOD, mobility, and UC are all positive drives
shaping and driving the future CPE PBX market forward. Mark commented;
“The consequence of these trends will be
that we will see a realignment of sales volumes within the CPE PBX market resulting
in some niches declining, others growing, and new ones appearing.”
“New
product and application niches will appear and niches which existed in 2008
will either no longer exist or be as large. But the CPE market, on the whole, will
recover”.
“We
do not believe that the growth in hosted UC solutions will be sufficient to
noticeably depress the CPE UC PBX market. Published figures suggest that hosted UC
solutions are currently around 5% of the total market and are suggested to grow
to no more than 10% by 2014. Although this represents high growth the percentage
share of the hosted market is too small to significantly impact the levels of
business seen by the channel in the CPE PBX market.”
“We expect to see hosted solutions
continue to show high growth rates until the niche matures. The CPE PBX market niche
will maintain its dominate market share supported by innovations in the PBX
platform and applications.”
Where is the market is going
The days of the plain old CPE IP-PBX are numbered. CPE PBX solutions which support cell phone
mobility, smartphones & tablets, third party UC apps and have the
capability to be deployed as a traditional CPE, in the cloud, or a distributed
solution are the future.
In the medium term the flexibility to work with either
analogue or IP will be needed if vendors want to capture the legacy as well as
the IP sites, but long term this capability is likely to become less important.
FortiNet with its FortiVoice solution
offers one of the best examples of a CPE PBX which can work with IP phones,
analogue phones or both.
Cloud or CPE
On the issue of cloud versus CPE, versus centralised, Mark
said;
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| Cloud or CPE PBX? |
“The demarcation between the CPE PBX,
cloud, or centralised versus distributed solutions markets is very grey."
"Let’s not forget that if a customer has
multiple sites and wants a cloud based solution this does not rule out a CPE
PBX sale. Vendors such as Vertical Communications with its Wave IP-PBX can
deliver a CPE solution which can be deployed anywhere in the network - on-site
or in the cloud”
Smartphones and tablets will be one of the key driving forces
shaping CPE PBX solutions over the next few years. Mark explained;
“In themselves smartphones and tablets are
not the primary market driver. It is the
UC apps which run on these devices and which impact workplace productivity
which are the front line drivers for the move to smartphone and tablet friendly
CPE PBX solutions."
"Most leading edge
vendors are already integrating smartphone and tablet support into their solutions. A prime example is the feature rich mobility
friendly solution Wave IP from Vertical Communications. This delivers all the normal mobility
features needed to support cell phone users but also supports the call
management solution ViewPoint Mobile for Android and Apple IOS phones.”
The concept of the CPE PBX is changing. Vendors or now
delivering highly functional communications platforms capable of supporting
third party apps. Mark explained;
“The notion that a CPE PBX is a
platform for third party UC apps, just like the cell phone is a platform for
apps, is a novel trend but one that long term will provide businesses with many
more solution options and the capability to customise and add to the
functionality of the PBX platform throughout its life. "
"Vertical Communications is
pioneering this with its Wave IP solution which provides a platform to run applications
traded on the Vertical AppMarket”
Investing in a CPE PBX platform which allows you to add
functionality at will means your communications platform can change, develop,
and be customised to suit the needs of the business throughout its working life
unlike the monolithic CPE PBX solutions which, perforce, deliver the same
functionality at the end of their life as on day one.
The concept of the CPE PBX as a versatile customisable communications
platform allows users to update and change their investment throughout the life
of the asset. Mark explained;
“Innovations in the delivery of these CPE
IP-PBX applications means customers have the option to enable the integrated
applications built into the platform or purchase applications from on-line
markets. For example Vertical Communications
in its Wave IP solution offers built in applications which can be licenced at any
time but is also providing a market place where apps can be sold and bought.”
Mobile and UC
Mobile friendly CPE PBX solutions
have become important in recent years as businesses look to support
their mobile workforce.
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| UC and BYOD is a potent force |
The ViewPoint screen based call management solution for
cell phones from Vertical Communications is one of the few examples of such an
application.
Mark ended by saying;
“The driving force underpinning all of
these trends is the increasing adoption of UC solutions. But it is the combination of UC with the BYOD
that is the motivation behind many of the developments in the CPE PBX product
niche."
"It is when you link UC solutions
with smartphones and tablets that the power of UC and mobility begins to be
appreciated by businesses from all sectors and that is what the CPE PBX vendor
will be looking to harness over the coming years.”
Integrated application
CPE PBX integrated applications fall into one of
two categories. There are the core UC
feature set applications which vendors such as Vertical Communications include
as standard on its Wave series of PBX and the traditional and not so
traditional call management applications such as such as contact centre, call
recording, IVR, fax plus a host of others. Mark commented;
“A few years
ago integrated applications were the novel differentiators in the CPE PBX
market. Now they have become de facto
standard necessary features. Presence
and instant messaging are the UC applications many UC PBX vendors package as UC
standard features."
"However, true UC PBX
solutions, such as Vertical’s Wave IP, provide a host of other UC applications such
as visual voicemail, conferencing, document sharing, and screen based call
management for mobiles.”
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