VoIP Industry Newsletter: Hosted PBX - Why it Finally Makes Sense for Small and Medium Businesses

One way to gain insight on the future evolution of Hosted PBX is to take a look at where industry leaders are deploying working capital toward new innovations. In this brief article, we take a look at Broadsoft’s perspective, a company with large market-share of the Hosted PBX feature server software licenses deployed, and a long track record of smart innovation in IP communications. Broadsoft believes that these services and applications will drive uptake by more and more enterprises of Hosted PBX technology and services.

First, a little background on Broadsoft. Broadsoft, especially with the combination of Sylantro and the former VocalData M6 platform, is the de facto leader in Hosted PBX feature server technology. The company has been around for over 10 years and has hundreds of successful carrier deployments under its belt. [Disclaimer: VoIP Logic began offering Broadworks as a managed service in 2009]. They have industry perspective tempered by experience. It’s worth noting that Broadsoft powers some of the biggest telco service deployments in the VoIP communications industry. While they, of course, have their own corporate agenda, it is also safe to say that it largely runs in parallel to the expectations in the Hosted PBX communications marketplace.

So, what is Broadsoft’s technology evolution plan? Using information from Broadsoft Connections, conversation, and Broadsoft’s company blog, I have tied together some of the general trends below.

• The expansion of VoIP consumption is predicated largely on an projected increase of broadband demand. The fixed broadband subscriber base is expected to grow from around 600 million subscribers today to 1 billion by 2013 (Scott Hoffpauir, Broadsoft CTO).
• Smart Devices and their application will proliferate:, the iPad, Kindle, iPod, home monitoring systems, mapping and GPS-enabled technologies, Augmented Reality platforms (www.Layar.com , www.mobilizy.com, etc.). Always-connected devices will become much more relevant.
• The ability for users to personalize communication services for their devices and preferences. Personalization in the sense of designing a ‘space’ (ring tones, backgrounds), but much more so, regarding setting up and managing availability. (Scott Hoffpauir, Broadsoft CTO).
• Ease of sharing more bandwidth intensive ‘rich’ media. Services that use video and content sharing. (Scott Hoffpauir, Broadsoft CTO).
• The mobility to be able to access your communication service provider anywhere, anytime and on any of your devices. VoIP-based technology really facilitates this goal by providing an end-user with a service profile in the network.
• High-definition voice will be the new standard for voice communications
• Enterprises are demanding comprehensive business continuity capabilities
• Enterprise workforces will become increasingly mobile

In my opinion, with the growing demand for broadband and wireless broadband, trends will emerge--and converge--primarily around user autonomy (choice, flexibility), mobility, and media consumption, in that order, and to a lesser degree around media creation/production. Voice calling in general and enterprise Hosted PBX systems in particular are adapting to meet these emerging trends. The suite of services and applications you offer to your target customer base today can be a very important strategic decision as you anticipate these trends’ effects on tomorrow.

Thoughts or questions? We’d love to hear.

See BroadbandIGNITE (www.broadbandignite.com ) for more in-depth information on these topics. And http://bit.ly/8tWyuz for Broadsoft CTO Scott Hoffpauir posts and content.

Richard Scullin

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