I was on the road yesterday, a quick jaunt to Chicago for an interview with Tellabs. Rich blogged about it and posted a bunch of images from the trip, including one picture that so eloquently captured my thoughts on how busy O'Hare was.

The Tellabs facility is a beautiful. Modern, spacious, everything a corporate headquarters should be.

Watch for the interview with president and CEO Robert Pullen to be published soon in NGN magazine.

While I was winging my way back home, Infonetics Research announced its Q4 (2008) Enterprise Telephony report.

The headline of the release suns it up quite nicely: "Cisco takes lead in 2008 enterprise telephony market; Alcatel-Lucent, ShoreTel sole 4Q08 winners"

So amid the gloom:

·         The worldwide enterprise telephony market dropped 14% sequentially in 4Q08 to $2.3 billion, with vendor revenue down for all types of equipment including pure IP PBX, hybrid PBX, and TDM PBX

·         The main cause of the decline is the lack of new business creation and business expansion due to the difficult economic climate worldwide

There were some bright spots as well:

·         Year-over-year, the overall PBX market is up 1.1%, with the IP PBX segments up and the TDM segment down as the market continues switching over from TDM to IP equipment

·         Pure IP PBX revenue grew 25% worldwide in 2008, sustained by new product introductions

On the vendor front, the Infonetics report found that Alcatel-Lucent and ShoreTel -- alone among their competitors -- realized PBX equipment revenue gains in Q4, with Alcatel-Lucent's revenue up 13% sequentially and ShoreTel's revenue up 1%.

And despite a quarterly revenue loss, Cisco maintained the first spot in overall PBX/KTS revenue market share in 4Q08. According to the report, 2008 saw Cisco "grab the lead" for the entire year for the first time as well.

Matthias Machowinski, Directing Analyst, Enterprise Voice and Data, Infonetics Research had this to say:

Because of the significantly deteriorating worldwide economic conditions, we expect the overall enterprise telephony market to contract fairly significantly in 2009. Once the world's major economies start growing again, however, a recovery in the PBX market will follow. We expect the market to stabilize in 2010, resume growth in 2011, and hit double-digit annual growth by 2012.