May 2, 2007

Hosted VOIP: $165 >>> $416 Million Growth

The push continues for businesses, especially smaller ones to outsource their phone system to someone else. Hosted VOIP is the answer.

Tech research company AMI says that hosted voip has grown to $416 Million from $165 Million a year ago.

"In particular, the small business (SB, or companies with up to 99 employees) segment is forecasted to grow at a spectacular 69% on a cumulative basis for the next 5 years," says Sanjeev Aggarwal, AMI-Partners' New York-based Vice President for SMB Infrastructure Solutions. "The concept of hosted VoIP is analogous to software-as-a-service (SaaS) where upstarts like Salesforce.com and NetSuite are gaining rapid adoption.

Similarly, the concept of voice communications as a service is becoming very appealing as these small businesses have almost no IT/voice communications expertise and resources."

Instead of dealing with the hassles of an un-responsive phone company or managing your own in-house PBX (even if you have a local tech do it for you), it's much easier and less of a hassle to outsource everything to someone else.

There are many drivers that are influencing SMBs to adopt hosted business-VoIP, including predictable monthly voice communications expenses with no up-front capital expense, toll savings for intra- and inter-company long-distance and local calling.

New York based VOIP provider M5 was mentioned by AMI as a leading VOIP provider as well as Covad Communications, XO Communications, Packet8 and Cbeyond.

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