Alternatives: Voice-over-IP

The voice-networking market may be one of the best sectors in the entire industry for alternative vendors to make their mark. Voice networking--particularly VoIP--is white-hot right now as customers large and small switch their systems to IP-based setups.

Close to half of all solution providers polled in the VARBusiness Alternatives Survey consider Cisco/Linksys the market leader in this area. Indeed, Cisco is leveraging its data-networking presence to gain control of the voice market, but it's going to face stiff competition from the likes of Avaya (the market-share leader in enterprise IP-PBX equipment), 3Com, Nortel and Juniper, which are feverishly ramping up their voice presence. Cisco should also closely watch traditional voice carriers and newer vendors, all of which are trying to come up with the "killer" VoIP solution.

Among the alternative vendors that aren't yet on many solution providers' radar is Sunnyvale, Calif.-based ShoreTel, which has received numerous technical awards for its intelligent VoIP systems. On top of that, the land rush toward VoIP leadership and the technology's inherent need for value-added services has numerous companies that are creating and selling their own VoIP tools. For example, Deltathree is a VoIP services provider in New York that develops VoIP-calling solutions it sells directly and through resellers. CFO Paul White says the VoIP market will get only more competitive going forward.

"As companies look to replace their key systems and PBXes, they will increasingly look to VoIP and will want to outsource it as a service," he says. "Now the [carrier-class] service providers are coming up to speed because they're particularly good at seeing what the customers demand, then creating a service to sell to them."

The moral of the story? Perhaps more than in any other space, voice networking offers VARs the best opportunity to partner with an alternative vendor.