"VoIP is displacing traditional telephony services a lot faster than anyone expected," says George Goodall, Research Analyst at Info-Tech Research Group. "It means a whole change to the look and feel of an organization's IT infrastructure."
"While one network that handles applications and telephone calls is an IT manager's dream, the speed with which VoIP is coming to the market might be an IT manager's nightmare," Goodall says. "Senior managers are demanding the cost savings associated with VoIP, vendors are scrambling to reinvent their offerings, and IT managers are scrambling to implement the technology."
Goodall points out that some traditional telephony infrastructure companies are meeting this challenge. "Companies like Nortel and Avaya are aggressively introducing new VoIP products to the SME market. It may be too late," says Goodall. "They're racing against a group of young companies with products that specifically address the infrastructure limitations of SMEs. These products aren't just scaled down version of large-enterprise systems. Potentially, they're category killers."
