Davidson Consulting, lead by Peter Davidson fax server industry expert analyst, has published a new report on FoIP Server Markets, that states the fax over IP (FoIP) market will grow during the five-year forecast period, from $130 million in 2009 to $415 million in 2014, a 26.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Companies are converting their conventional fax servers to FoIP servers and increasing adoption of Internet-based fax services and Cloud Faxing technologies.  Mr. Davidson indicates market growth will also be driven by server virtualization, centralization of fax operations, enhanced IP infrastructures, VoIP initiatives requiring an IP fax strategy, the ability to FoIP enable both multifunction peripherals (MFPs) and traditional fax machines while preserving audit trails and satisfying compliance regulations. 

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Overall, FoIP servers generated 88% of 2010 revenues, while hardware-based sales accounted for 12%. The report further predicts by 2013, hardware sales will be flat and will start to decline.

This year OpenText is the leading FoIP supplier, as its FoIP revenues increased by 46% to $54 million; likely to be augmented with its new release of RightFax 10. This placed OpenText just ahead of Sagemcom, the creator of XmediusFax, whose FoIP revenues increased by 6% from $48 million to $51 million in 2010.  Sagemcom's results were hurt by the conversion from euros to dollars which decreased the company's revenues to $51 million, whereas, if the euro conversion had stayed as it was last year, Sagemcom's revenues would have been $55 million, causing it to retain its leadership position.  Sagemcom derives about 80% of its revenues from Europe.

The maturing relationship of SIP (Session-Initiation Protocol) Trunking and fax is a key for FoIP Server market growth.  SIP Trunking is a service offered by an Internet Telephony Service Provider that permits businesses that have a PBX (private-branch exchange) installed to use Voice-over-IP (VoIP), by using the same Internet Protocol (IP) connection simultaneously.  SIP Trunking can help companies save on IP infrastructure and overall telecommunications costs.  By extending the SIP capabilities of the corporate network outside the LAN, satellite offices, remote workers and customers can use VoIP and other forms of real time communications applications to share ideas and increase productivity.

There are several notable activities which occurred during the latter development stages of the Davidson report which may also spur market growth and adoption over the next several years. Those include the work of the SIP Forum and i3Forums respectively, recent acquisition of Global Crossing by Level 3 Communications, improvements of fax machine ATAs by Audio Codes, Microsoft's Exchange UM program, Biscom's full suite of solutions (hosted, software based and appliance), Sagemcom's UM strategy with XmediusFax 6.5, Open Text release of RightFax 10, the growing demand for Cloud faxing solutions and more.

Microsoft's Exchange 2010 UM Partner Fax Program is designed to verify fax server solutions are interoperable with Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging, and further that they have FoIP and SIP capabilities.  Some essential SIP requirements are negotiating and receiving fax media over IP networks using SIP signaling, processing specific SIP headers to extract the required (Exchange mailbox) destination for the fax message, and creating and sending fax messages to Exchange with a specified MIME profile and SMTP.

The SIP Forum Fax Task Group (FTG) is testing T.38 FoIP with the 37 Internet Telephony Service Providers who represent a combined subscriber base of over 1.5 billion in over 100 countries. The 37 Internet Telephony Service providers are members of the i3 forum. The i3 forum wrote the Technical Specification for Fax Over IP Service WorkStream Technical Aspects. The SIP Forum FTG is overseeing the FoIP testing with 14 different IP carrier networks and includes 14 different environments.  Several of the networks have never used T.38 faxing, and another tore down any call where it detected a fax.   At the time this report was written, such interoperability was starting to be accomplished between the 14 different carrier networks.  By 2012, interoperability should be accomplished between the 14 carriers, and from there, the assumption is that the other 23 carriers in the i3 will follow suit.

Meanwhile, FoIP has also decreased its barrier entry points in comparison to TDM and Internet fax service providers. Such eliminated arguments include telecom costs, which are cut by FoIP servers as well as by Internet fax services, the cost of hardware upgrades, which goes away when businesses install software-based FoIP solutions, and maintenance costs, which are less with centralized FoIP solutions and less with software-only  FoIP installations.  Finally, FoIP vendors providing customer premise solutions have an advantage when it comes to MFP links, where they sell rich links, while the Internet fax service suppliers typically only sell links where the MFP must handle email, which does not meet with compliance regulations. 
 
ABOUT THE REPORT

The full FoIP Server market report is 76-pages in length, profiles 45 fax server vendors and 6 fax board vendors, and provides market shares for fax servers, IP fax servers, production fax, regional fax servers, fax boards, fax boards in the US and Europe, and regional fax servers. The report also provides forecasts for 12 different aspects of the computer-based fax industry. This report is the ideal sales, support and product management tool for fax technology ISV's and FoIP resellers, VoIP ISV's, VoIP Resellers, and enterprise class resellers. Additional FoIP information can be located at http://www.AllAboutFoIP.com. The full report is available for $3,500 and can be purchased by sending a request from http://www.allaboutfoip.com/document-request.html.