Abstract
Hosted enterprise IP telephony (IPT) services were first introduced in Europe
around 2002 and the last two years have seen a flurry of service launches from
telcos and a few ISPs. Service providers are finding that the hosted concept
is slow to gain traction with enterprise customers, although most recognise
that this is still a relatively new market. In spite of the relatively short
market experience to date there exists some doubt in the market about the
future of hosted IPT services, and some providers are already reviewing their
market strategy in this area.
This report examines the market drivers for the hosted IPT business model, the
difficulties encountered by early market entrants and the future for hosted
IPT services.
Table of Contents
Key messages
The managed and hosted IPT services landscape
- What are hosted IPT services?
- Service definitions
- Other enterprise IPT services
- Positioning of enterprise IPT solutions
- Customer benefits of hosted IP telephony
Market drivers for hosted IPT services
- Growth of IPT generally
- Hosted IPT offers significant benefits over premise-based IPT
- Underlying growth in out-tasking through managed services
- Growing availability of business-grade DSL is helping the business case
- Customers are becoming more concerned with benefits than technology
The current status of the market for hosted IPT in Western Europe
- Early market entrants have found slow growth
- Limited choice of suppliers and strong competition from premise-based IPT
- Low awareness and much confusion over terminology
- Poorly defined and targeted propositions
- Inadequate channel strategies
- Most incumbent telcos will launch IP centrex services in 2006
Case study - France Telecom
Market development for hosted IP telephony
- Small businesses (up to 50 employees)
- Medium-sized businesses
- Large enterprise
Ovum market forecasts
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