The folks at Digium have been quite busy, in 2012 the firm released a new gateway product to ease customers into SIP and a new line of IP phones. Although the IP phones (targeted at its Switchvox users) were only released mid year, Digium reports it sold more than 60,000 units in 2012. Switchvox phones are SIP endpoints, but offer added capabilities for improved integration and simpler provisioning on its Switchvox platform. This month, Digium released a hosted version of Switchvox called Switchvox Cloud.

Switchvox is a software-based solution sold as an appliance. It offers a reasonably broad UC feature set for small and mid-sized organizations, a highly intuitive web-based interface for users and administrators, and it provides nearly all of its features in a single simplified user license (2012 Research on Digium).

As hosted services continues to grow, it is forcing business model changes for most premises-based vendors. NEC, Avaya, Mitel, and ShoreTel now have hosted options. Digium now joins the lucrative effort with its own Switchvox solution available now as a service. Switchvox Cloud is a near identical implementation of its premises-based solution. It is aimed at business customers with fewer than 30 seats, but can scale much higher.