BYOD Does Not Seem to Have Harmed the Enterprise Phone System Market

At least so far, the "bring your own device" trend in business does not seem to have affected enterprise demand for business phone systems, though pricing seems to be under pressure. 

The global enterprise PBX market (TDM, hybrid, and pure PBXs) represented $1.8 billion in sales in first quarter of 2013, down nine percent from the previous quarter, and down 10 percent from the first quarter of 2012, according to Infonetics Research. 

Price pressure seems to be the big problem, though, since demand in North America and Asia seems either flat or slightly up, in terms of shipments. “The big squeeze is coming from hyper-competitive price pressure all over, with average revenue per line down across the board,” said Diane Myers, Infonetics Research principal analyst. 

Analysts at Dell’Oro Group think it is possible that generally flat revenue trends in the broader enterprise voice markets could change over the next few years, though. “Our view is that the calculation for enterprises has changed, thanks to BYOD and a younger generation of employees comfortable with social media and communicating without a desk phone,” Dell'Oro Group researchers say. 

 “As a result of this shift, many premise-based customers may adopt “Voice as a SaaS” solution in a hosted/cloud infrastructure in the near future,” Dell’Oro Group says. 

Separately, a study sponsored by Cisco suggests that bring your own device policies already are embraced by 89 percent of organizations, principally meaning those organizations allow their workers to bring their own devices for work. 

The Cisco financial analysis was conducted across six countries--Brazil, China, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States--and suggests BYOD employees are gaining a global average of 37 minutes of productive time per week. 

The time savings range from 81 minutes per week in the United States to just four minutes per week in Germany, where BYOD is viewed more skeptically. 

On average, the current median level of BYOD implementation—what Cisco calls “Basic BYOD”—generates $350 of value each year per mobile employee. 

The number of BYOD devices in the countries surveyed expected to more than double, from 198 million in 2013 to 405 million by 2016, Cisco says. 

Smart phones are the overwhelming choice of BYOD employees, who own an average of 1.7 devices for work and have paid $965 in out-of-pocket costs for them.