Is cloud sabotaging unified comms?

Businesses are continuing to hold off new phone system purchases, and global enterprise PBX revenue is falling as a result.

That's according to the latest IHS Infonetics Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment, which reveals PBX revenue fell 6% in the first quarter of 2015.

The quarterly IHS Infonetics Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment market research report tracks PBX phone systems (TDM, hybrid and pure IP), voice over IP (VoIP) gateways, UC applications and IP phones.

The report reveals the top enterprise telephony vendors for 1Q15 as Cisco and Avaya, while Microsoft continues to dominate the UC platform market.

"The enterprise PBX market remains challenging, with revenue down yet again in the first quarter of 2015," explains Diane Myers, research director for VoIP, UC and IMS at IHS.

"Pure IP PBX was the one segment to post year-over-year growth due to strength in Asia Pacific," Myers adds.

The report shows worldwide PBX revenue, including TDM, hybrid and pure IP totalled $1.6 billion in 1Q15, with PBX line shipments up 3% from the first quarter of 2014.

According to the report, Pure IP PBX line shipments were a strong driver, up 17% year-over-year following a solid 4Q14. Hybrid IP PBXs accounted for around 60% of all lines shipped in 1Q15.

Sales of unified communications applications dropped 5% in 1Q15 from the year-ago first quarter, as enterprise spending remained conservative, IHS explains.

"Things have started to slow on the unified communications front as well, which we attribute to movement to the cloud as businesses look for ease of management and flexibility," Myers says.