AudioCodes Get’s Into the IP Phone Game

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Didn’t see this one coming did you? It’s okay, neither did I.

Fresh off of news that AudioCodes was planning to HD VoIP enable their leading line of media servers and gateways, the company announced today that they are getting into the IP phone space with the release of three HD VoIP handsets. If you are like me, you saw the media server and gateway announcement coming as it is a natural progression for the product line, but this IP Phone seems a little odd until you think about.

That’s when it actually make sense.  Here’s why:

1. As the cost of IP phones continues to decrease,  using a media gateway to interface existing analog phones with a shiny new IP PBX makes less cost savings sense. This will lead to a decrease in the need and therefore sale of media gateways for this purpose.
2. As VoIP becomes more reliable, businesses will eventually become less dependent on the PSTN and therefore won’t need a media gateway to interface with the PSTN. This isn’t going to happen overnight, but every year it get smaller means less opportunity for media gateway sales.
3. AudioCodes already has quite the install base - they can leverage it to sell these IP phones into it. They, if anyone, know who the business are that are using VoIP but do not have IP Phones.
4. HD VoIP/Voice is the future. This has been said before here, but HD is that killer component that once network and deliver issues wain (as technology improves), will be the reason to use VoIP, not cost savings. Right now, is a great time to join the HD race, now that Polycom has paved a path.

Outside of the phones look, what do you think? Did AudioCodes make the right move here?