Not VOIP Hosted VOIP will rock 2009

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We have noticed that several VOIP blogs around the world are claiming that VOIP usage especially in the SMB sector will surge in 2009 due to bad economy and cost cutting measures taken by businesses. We think otherwise.

Making a simple equation as Bad Economy = Surge in VOIP usage is a wrong assumption. There are still 30-40% businesses worldwide who do not understand how VOIP is going to save any cost for them. VOIP is not POTS yet, period.

However I still agree that VOIP will eventually go mainstream and in fact, traditional telecom will have to compete with VOIP at some time but still we aint there yet.

On Paper, we can assume that a switch to VOIP will save your cost. However we need to be more rational, there is always a cost associated with a switch. You would need hardware,softwares etc. Many Small businesses or even enterprise level companis will think twice before making the shift. Look at all the credit crunch around us.

Secondly, we should not forget the basics of budgeting cost. If the companies haven't budgeted any cost of switching to VOIP in 2009, they are most likely not going to add it as adhoc project cost. It's just way too stupid to even believe that. That means only those companies who made a budget for a switch to VOIP would look at the option of switching to VOIP.

Again, they have a cheaper option of Hosted VOIP.(might not be cheaper in the long run.). However the startup cost for Hosted VOIP is far lower than buying your hardware yourself and maintaining it. You possibly save time and cost and of course resources.

In our opinion, besides the residential VOIP market slated to expand this yea, we do not see any major shift in businesses adpoting to VOIP unless they already accounted for. Unfortunately, we might see many VOIP Providers going down this year. The sunrocket story might just be repeated. I wouldn't like to take names here,but I know a few feeling the pain.

If you think otherwise, Please feel free to add comments or respond on your blog about this article.

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