Avaya pushes IP telephony drive

Channel crucial to adoption of technology

Telephony vendor Avaya has sold seven million IP units and is backing further channel involvement as the market gathers pace.

According to research commissioned by Avaya, IP telephony accounted for eight per cent of the enterprise telephony lines market in 2004, and the number of installed IP lines will quadruple by 2007.

Gordon Loader, Avaya’s director of converged voice applications, said channel players will be heavily involved in sculpting the IP telephony marketplace. “There was a period when IP education was needed, but now companies are buying into the products,” he said.

“Costs are lower for firms using an IP system. There is a huge amount of channel involvement and we are seeing uptake on all levels.

“The value-add is in the channel, and this is the direction the market is heading towards.”

Russell Atwood, chief executive of Call Centre Technology (CCT), said that 60 to 70 per cent of CCT’s current projects are IP-based.

“The only telephony we provide is Avaya and we will continue to work with Avaya for the foreseeable future,” he said.

Peter Hall, research director at Ovum, said: “The UK market is pretty advanced. It is only six to eight months behind the US market, with major players such as Cisco and Avaya pushing the growth.

“Over the past year end-users have become more comfortable with IP telephony as security and quality have improved.”