Cisco Systems has recorded the sale of its 200,000th IP phone in Australia, which it says demonstrates the wide spread acceptance of converged communications in the Australian market. Cisco also claims to have taken the number one spot in the Australian business telephony market.

According to Cisco, Australia is the first global market where Cisco has achieved business telephony leadership. According to a Frost & Sullivan report,(a company which Cisco has commissioned to do reports in the past),
Cisco had 15.3 per cent market share in Australian business telephony in 2004, despite the fact that Cisco does not sell traditional PBX telephony systems. This was an increase from 2003, where Cisco had 13.6 per cent market share and ranked third. The report covers all phones systems sold to businesses, including key telephone systems, traditional PBXs, IP-enabled PBXs and Pure-IP telephony.

The report also states that Cisco has the largest share of the Australian IP
telephony segment of the voice market at 36.8 per cent.

Foad Fadaghi, senior industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan, said; "Cisco
has extended its market leadership throughout 2004 despite increasing
competition in IP telephony in what is a highly fragmented market."

The 200,000th phone Cisco sold was deployed at FB Rice & Co Patent and Trade Mark
Attorneys.

Bruce Hort, IT manager at FB Rice & Co, said; "Intellectual property
practice is highly technical, time critical, and confidential in nature.
Combining voice and data onto a highly secure, IP based system helps our
attorneys meet these demands and serve our clients at the highest level. It
also reduces our network operating costs and paves the way for a host of
new applications such as integrated phone and customer relationship
management."

In Australia, Cisco says it has more than 600 customers using IP telephony,
including AMP, Arnott's, Freehills, Lend Lease, NIB, Servcorp, Westpac and
Woodside Petroleum. Worldwide, Cisco has IP telephony customers such as Bank of America, Boeing, Ford Motor Company and Merrill Lynch.

According to Cisco, as well as upgrading from PBX based telephony to gain the benefits of voice over IP (VoIP) telephony applications, Australian businesses are switching to converged communications to improve productivity through applications such as videoconferencing, contact centre applications and workflow collaboration.