The SBC segment has also felt the pinch, it seems. The slight bit of slowdown we have seen since late last year in VoIP market seems to have trickled through the - otherwise hot - SBC segment. Up until 3Q06, the market grew nicely. And then we saw two consecutive quarterly declines. The market seems to have bounced back in 2Q07.
However, I think we are likely to see a drop again in Q3. The reasons for this brief spell of slowdown are many. First of all, as noted above there is a general VoIP slowdown right now due to diversion towards IP TV and IMS trials. There has been some consolidation in the SBC segment over the last couple of years. Asia has gone very quiet. SBC vendors other than Acme Packet and Nextone are in general struggling. And most of all, big vendors are convincing their carrier customers to stick to their integrated VoIP security solutions.
