How mature is the market for Convergence?

We have reached a chasm in the market. After a lot of hype, adoption rates are up. Key drivers for this have been:

• Market confidence in the propositions from the vendors/manufacturers.
• Marketing messages from early adopters have been propagated in the market – demonstrating the real benefits and dispelling the negative issues or concerns. A classic 'tipping point' in the market has been reached.
• The availability of service level guarantees, support for real time traffic and QoS enabled broadband connectivity to company networks now enables a company to deploy a converged solution across the board, at a compelling price point.

The drive for Convergence is mostly coming from cost savings – calls and management. That said, increasingly so applications are becoming key drivers, as their real value is leverage in a converged environment:

• Voice (VoIP) solutions directly from vendors or proprietary solutions – CRM, IP Phones & IP Softphones
• IP based applications and other value add applications
• Niche and vertical business applications (e.g. Citrix or Siebel)