30% of US companies plan to give VOIP a try

According to In-Stat, more than 30% of firms, even those with less than 100 employees, are interested in and, more importantly, planning to adopt IP telephony solutions in 2005. However, the research shows that businesses needs for IP voice networks vary greatly and that there is a growing need for "small office" solutions, which are hard to come by. This suggests that one size won't fit all for IP telephony and that meeting customers' diverse requirements with a rich portfolio of product may be what distinguishes "leading" vendors from those that fail.

IP Telephony solutions account for a bit more than 10% of the installed base of voice lines in the Enterprise market. However, despite the opportunity for growth for IP telephony, the competitive environment is such that any one vendor will likely grow at the expense of another in the coming years. The small business market is expected to become a key growth segment for IP telephony solutions, as these customers show increasing needs for more advanced voice and data networking capability. A key opportunity for vendors in 2005 and beyond is expected to be the "small IP Network" designed for single sites with 20 or fewer users. With the average enterprise having more than 100 small sites, the opportunity across size of business for solutions such as these is enormous.