What to Expect from the Networking Industry in 2008What to Expect from the Networking Industry in 2008

3. VoIP Moves a Step Further into the Enterprise
Many small and midsize businesses have been moving away from traditional phone systems to new IP-based ones. Now that they have revamped their voice infrastructure by upgrading their call control to IP, they have started to look at ways to push that functionality out to users' desktops. As a result, many have started to swap out their traditional handsets with VoIP-enabled ones.

This trend is having a twofold impact. Pricing for these devices has been dropping. One reason why some companies had been sticking with traditional handsets was their cost, in some cases 50% less than VoIP alternatives. As prices fall, small and midsize businesses will be better able to justify these new investments.

Also, the change enables companies to deploy more sophisticated voice applications such as Find Me, Follow Me, where a switch will buzz a person's VoIP phone, instant message address, and cell phone, in order to deliver an important message. The advent of such applications, called unified communications, will make workers at small and midsize businesses more productive.

4. Virtualization Forges into the Network
Virtualization has become an industry buzzword because it enables companies to use their computer resources more effectively. Thus far, the virtualization push has focused mainly on servers, storage, and applications. In 2008, small and midsize businesses can expect to see forays into network virtualization.

Data center initiatives by major hardware providers require greater automation and virtualization of network resources. In today's distributed enterprise, organizations have multithreaded servers with multiple racks running thousands of applications, and supporting tens of thousands of users across numerous locations.

Virtualization of multivendor network resources can help new services be deployed rapidly and cost effectively so user groups have access to needed applications. The inclusion of networking functions in the virtualization mix will lead to new partnerships as well as merger and acquisition activity across the server, storage, and network domains.

All in all, 2008 shapes up to be another year of dynamic changes in the networking arena.

Paul Korzeniowski has been writing about networking issues for two decades. His work has appeared in 'Business 2.0, Entrepreneur, Investors Business Daily, Newsweek, and information. He is based in Sudbury, Mass.