I am a telecommunications consultant for mostly large companies. Usually, large companies means call centers and AVAYA is king of that world. I would estimate 80% of large companies here use AVAYA. Only one uses Cisco and thats becuase their IT and telecom department are the same people (who happen to be Cisco guys).
My biggest frustration with VOIP (aside from Asterisk) is that VOIP is presented as all or nothing (you are not using VOIP if you are not using VOIP phones) For a large business, a $500+ Cisco IP phone versus a $250 AVAYA TDM phone x10,000+ does not make sence. Add in the fact that telecom departments are under funded with hardware thats 20+ years old (yet for some reason we are held to higher standards then the network guys who have lower SLA and much bigger budgets) and that large business means call centers and you wont see systems from network companies moving in this area any time soon.
I use Cisco Call manager and it takes me 10 minutes for me to do something that takes me 20 seconds to do in AVAYA. This is just one example of that network companies dont know voice or why this is such a big deal. At one company they can have 400+ mac tickets for 2 people per week doing software only.
Not only do VOIP only systems from network companies take forever to do mac and cost to much for large companies because of the cost of phones and servers. They also have poor if even any IVRs, and CMS systems. That is a big deal.
The same camp that is pushing all voip systems, voip trunks (yuck) and asterisk (double yuck) are the same people who are pushing linux (becuase its "better"). People dont like change, the last time I checked almost all PCs run Windows despite being "bad". Same thing with PBX systems. Seasoned call center managers EXPECT AVAYA CentreVu and they dont give a rip if its linux, voip, open source, etc. Same thing with windows. People dont like change. AVAYA is not going anywhere in big business.
I use VOIP every day on AVAYA Definity systems, parts of which are 20+ years old (circuit packs, 2500 phones). However, I and most large companies that have telecom people who know that they are doing do not see VOIP as all or nothing. They see it as a new tool to reduce cost and increase features. I use VOIP for teleworkers via their laptops, outsource call centers and to send calls all over the world. I rarely use or see a VOIP phone in a large company. If a VOIP phone it used it is becuase to wire a new leased floor for TDM costs more then the phones.
However, for smaller companies VOIP could be attractive. Becuase you can offset the processing power of the pbx to the phone. The venture ip system is a perfect example. For large business no matter if you use ip phones or not, you still need lots of processing power (IVR, vectors, cti screen pops, voice apps, cms, etc). You cannot offset the processing power on to the phone.
They way I would present VOIP to small or mid size companies is the same way I present it to large companies. VOIP is an additional tool for your PBX. A small company can use it to have some people work from home, a exec to use a laptop for confrence calls, send calls between buildings for free, etc.
TDM, is not going away anytime soon. However, I would still offer VOIP as a option for the above features so when they get the temptation to go voip you can say you already are using it.
If you want to know how to market a TDM system in artificial "VOIP world" look no further then the AVAYA Definity. They are a text book example of how to compete against Cisco, Shoretel, 3Com, etc. and they are winning.
For those customer you loose to a VOIP only system (even more so if they used VOIP trunks), they will come back. When the VOIP trunk goes down, and the IT guy says it will be fixed in a few hours or days (or the VOIP provider goes bankrupt). Or when they want advanced features (real IVR, CMS, voice apps) and the IT guy says they will get a "solution" (the second most over used and over rated corporate buzz word after India) in weeks, months or years.
