Living Up To The Hype

Convergence is one technology that is living up to the hype. According to an In-Stat report released this week, the firm estimates that four million IP broadband IP lines will be in use by the end of this year. Even for a technology that is known to be powering forward at a rapid rate, this is a pretty remarkable number given that at the end of last year In-Stat put that number at 1.3 million. So what is driving IP telephony's seemingly unstoppable growth?In my opinion, there are a multitude of reasons for VoIP's stellar success - ranging from cost-savings, to better manageability to a rich feature set. I think all of these are valid reasons for the success of convergence. However, I think there is something to the elegant simplicity of the technology that has helped make it a pretty easy pitch for IT professionals to make to their business counterparts.

After all, who can't understand the beauty of having a single consolidated infrastruture to handle both voice and data? Both the IT and business sides understand intuitively convergence should be easier to manage. Then the creative brainstorming begins...picture voice-enabled productivity applications, mobility and presence management, and unified messaging. Hey, what is not to like?