Apples and Oranges

I do appreciate the quote in Strategy Analytic’s press release about their latest research on the Enterprise FMC Market. They said “UMA is here to stay”.

But after reading the release about the report, I’m left feeling they are comparing apples and oranges.

"SIP-based services will initially be implemented by large multinationals with the capacity to carry voice traffic on their private MPLS network. Consequently, SIP-based revenues will overtake UMA revenues toward the end of the forecast period. Moreover, Microsoft's UC (Unified Communications) solution, is also likely to see positive uptake as a business solution," commented Andrew Brown, Director for Wireless Enterprise Strategies.

There’s no doubt that enterprises will use SIP for IP telephony. IP-PBXs all run SIP. One of the fundamental advantages is that the calls can be carried between PBXs over the enterprise’s own private networks. But that’s an enterprise solution.

UMA is a technology for mobile operators, not enterprises. Certainly prosumers will use UMA in the enterprise, but IT departments can’t ‘deploy UMA’. And UMA was not designed to be carried through a private network.

So comparing UMA revenues with SIP revenues for Enterprise FMC doesn’t seem to be comparing like services.

There is no doubt that UMA will have an impact on the enterprise market, but it will be an FMS impact, migrating minutes from the fixed network/PBX to the mobile network.