Consider the week had by VoIP.

 

A full month before this week’s Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Miami, we reported here that – based strictly on anecdotal evidence – the technology appeared to be gaining traction in this slower economy and that, with its lower costs and increasingly reliable and high quality, VoIP was poised to gain a healthy share of the voice communications space.

 

Yet no one really knew what to expect at the ITEXPO (News - Alert). Who would come? How would it go?

 

Today, as TMC President Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) and Vice President and CTO Tom Keating report, just as the ITEXPO wraps up – more than 8,300 attendees and dozens of testimonials later – the industry can take a step back and marvel at the VoIP’s strength.

 

As Keating reports in a blog entry here, throngs of service and equipment providers say they forged partnerships, signed deals, hired new workers and came away from the event feeling invigorated and positive.

 

Much of that feedback and discussion has been captured on film – go here to see TMC Group Managing Editor Erik Linask (News - Alert) interviewing dozens of ITEXPO exhibitors, sponsors and participants on the show’s crowded floor and in a meeting room overlooking the conference hall.

 

Here’s what Robert Messer (News - Alert) of ABP International said: “This is one of the best shows for IP communications and VoIP combining everybody from the U.S. and a bunch of customers from Latin America. Great crowd. Very busy. One of the best shows for us every year. We got a lot of leads here both from Florida and pretty much the country.”

 

 

 

This much cannot be denied: VoIP is emerging as a force in the future of business communications.

 

Some of those who exhibited at the show came specifically to target the technology.

 

As TMCnet reported today, Hal Edwards, chief marketing officer at ConnectWise – a Tampa, Florida-based provider of workflow-driven automation for the IT industry – hadn’t spent much time around VoIP professionals before this week.

 

Through its flagship automation solution – ConnectWise PSA – the company serves more than 2,000 businesses information technology service providers. Now, as the cost-saving, increasingly high-quality and reliable technology gains traction in this economy, and major players such as Microsoft Corp. seek to carve out their territories, about 50 of those ConnectWise clients are beginning to provide VoIP services.

 

“We know that there’s an opportunity,” Edwards told TMCnet during an interview at the show. “We’re interested in finding right kinds of potential clients to talk to. We’re not looking for the very big guys. Our sweet spot is the give to 50 user group that may have 100 or 200 clients themselves, and they’re managing VoIP or telephony services that are too small to have their own in-house solutions.”

 

With ConnectWise PSA, Edwards said, the company solves what he calls “the chaos of running a business efficiently.”

 

“They may be killing themselves trying to head a business in a profitable direction,” Edwards said. “Our solution captures time, profitability, management of SLAs, generates reports, invoicing, provides a lot of solutions so you don’t have to go and pull these things together from disparate places.”

 

ConnectWise’s timing couldn’t be better, as more and more businesses are turning to Internet telephony and VoIP-based unified communications systems – and, by all accounts, the ITEXPO show, as a barometer of the market, demonstrated the technology’s strength.

 

Why so strong?

 

Part of that is cost-savings and the natural evolution of the communications technology market.

 

But for Ravi Sakaria, president and chief executive officer of VoicePulse, a North Brunswick, New Jersey-based company that offers full home office, small business, wholesale custom application services, part of the reason is also that the product itself is maturing, that VoIP has grown up.

 

“You can see it here,” Sakaria said during the show. “For the first time, the exhibitors know what their business models are. Everybody has a viable model now, and if you ask, ‘Who is your target?’ or ‘What is your revenue structure?’ – everybody knows. People are out there exhibiting products, not exhibiting ideas and reference designs. People out there are putting out stuff that you can actually purchase or sign a contract for today. They have the right materials. It’s a very focused show.”