Channel-Friendly Cloud VoIP Providers

As the VoIP market continues to grow, so too does the cloud computing market – and it’s probably of little surprise that the two have converged and started growing together. Businesses of all sizes are beginning to make the choice to move their on-premise voice systems into the cloud and use hosted voice services rather than manage the systems within their own facilities. Naturally, a growing market means growing opportunities for the channel, but cloud VoIP services are still in their infancy compared to more traditional forms of telephony. It’s a market that’s growing, and several vendors are turning to the channel to help get their services to the customers that need them the most. According to the Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA) (http://www.tiaonline.org/) 2011 ICT Market Review and Forecast, cloud computing will be the biggest driver of voice-centric spending over the next four years. Cloud VoIP only represented 16 percent of voice spending in 2010, but by 2014, TIA expects cloud VoIP spending to grow by $5.6 billion. That’s a substantial portion of the market, as the TIA report indicated that incremental spending on voice systems, voice messaging, unified communications, conferencing and contact centers combined will grow by $5.9 billion in the same time period. Distributor Synnex’s (http://www.synnex.com/) numbers indicate the cloud UC market in total will be valued at $3 billion by 2014. Although Synnex’s and TIA’s projected total revenue from cloud VoIP and UC are somewhat different, they both agree that the cloud VoIP area is growing substantially.What can VARs and MSPs do right now to get in on the growing cloud VoIP market while it’s still young? Simple. They can check out the following channel-friendly cloud VoIP service providers.