The business phone has come a long way over the years. What started off as a simple way to make cold calls to customers, and maintain connections between coworkers, has now become a comprehensive solution for collaboration and communication. In some cases, the business phone isn't just a solution for audio anymore, it's a multi-media extravaganza, complete with video, messaging, and various other solutions for conferencing success.
The question on everyone's mind as communication strategies continue to evolve, is whether we'll still be purchasing business phone hardware three, to five years from now, or whether our idea of the business phone will be completely replaced by softphone clients, online apps, and team collaboration environments.
Communication for the New Generation
As millennials emerge as the largest generation in the world, it makes sense that we'd be starting to move away from the traditional deskphone, and into the realm of softphones and mobile clients instead. After all, this is the generation of digital natives that we've all been talking about. To these professionals, digital communication on laptops, tablets, and smartphones is second nature - they don't need the familiarity and comfort of the deskphone.
Yet, despite this, evidence suggests that the deskphone remains as strong a business element as ever. In fact, it might surprise you to learn just how well the traditional business phone continues to perform in the current climate, with figures for VoIP markets predicted to double by 2020.
So, what's happening here? The answer is that not only are business phones adapting to meet the needs of new generations, but they're also giving them the stability and performance that they crave in this time of ever-rising competition. Adjusting to the needs of a new workforce may not mean throwing desktop phones in the trash, and sticking to softphones. Instead, it might mean making sure that all VoIP phones are equipped with the tools each worker needs to perform at their best.
Fortunately, the rise of the new SIP open standard could make that easier than ever.
Adjusting for the Versatile VoIP Phone
While for many brands, desktop phone revenues have started to decline, the vendors that support open-standard SIP platforms like Skype for Business, and similar, are seeing huge growth in their sales. Open-standard SIP solutions allow modern companies to adjust and alter their VoIP experience according to their own unique needs.
That might mean that you transform your huddle-room conference phone to ensure that it connects with your Microsoft Skype for Business Collaboration strategies. The buzzword for the future of VoIP business phones isn't necessarily "outdated" or "irrelevant", but "integration".
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Huddle Room[/caption]
