Traditional TDM PBX phone system sales also posted a slight bump up in revenue in 1Q07 after 5 consecutive quarterly losses, but are expected to continue their overall decline, racking up a 5-year compound annual growth rate of -45% from 2006 to 2010.
"A number of important developments are sure to inject a jolt or two of excitement into the enterprise telephony market this year," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research.
"Microsoft is launching OCS 2007 (their unified communications product), and the question on everybody's mind is what's the market impact? Will buyers abandon their PBXs in favour of a pure unified communications solution? We don't think so, at least for the short term. Also, vendor consolidation is heating up again: Inter-Tel and Mitel are planning to merge, and the industry is rife with speculation about a possible Avaya acquisition. And then there's ShoreTel's IPO, which is just around the corner. So this should be an interesting year for the PBX market."