Washington, D.C.―This week's VoiceCon show promises to have convergence-hungry attendees anxious to dig into a variety of IP telephony fare at a time when budget woes have lesser priorities stuck on the back burner. Companies such as Alcatel, Avaya, Mitel and Siemens will offer hardware and software aimed at letting users combine voice and data onto one network and take full advantage of converged applications. However, these vendors also will need to address nagging user concerns about IP telephony's sturdiness and ability to reduce IT costs. VoiceCon is one of the few IT trade shows holding its own in this difficult economy Three thousand are expected to attend, which would be an increase of 300 over last year. The number of exhibitors is up to 54 from 44 at last year's show. As will be evidenced at the show, IP voice vendors are moving toward opening up and modularizing various parts of corporate telephony that are consolidated into one or two boxes in the proprietary PBX world. Equipment makers say this could help make corporate phone and messaging systems less expensive to buy and maintain.
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