15 February 2007

So, do you go with a proprietary or open source PBX? It’s a question being asked all the time as companies that need to replace aging phone systems weigh the alternatives in their move to IP telephony and VoIP.

There’s a lot at stake. Market analyst Dell’Oro Group recently projected total PBX revenues at over $7.5 billion in 2011, with IP PBXs making by far the biggest gains. Traditional TDM PBXs will have less than five percent of the market by then, a catastrophic drop from the 85 percent share they held in 2002.

In many ways the decision-making follows what’s now a well-worn path. On the one hand, do you choose the large, stable supplier whose proprietary PBX has as many features as you could ever use and that you know will be well-supported? Or do you take a flyer on the far-less expensive open source system that may not yet have as full a set of features and where the future support is much less certain?