"Pretty graphs tells us that economic chaos is good for VoIP! Slash costs! Avoid melt-downs! "
At least, that's conclusions in this recent article by Don Witt on tmcnet.com. I changed the title, because I thought 'A Bad Economy Drives a 2009 VoIP Surge' was a little dry.

It's a beautiful graph with results I'd love to believe in (envisioning a veritable VoIP utopia) - but without hard facts, it's effectively optimism. It's hard to imagine someone wanting to replace their phone system when they're trying to save money; especially given the costs of such a migration - At best, VoIP systems are long term investments, and the expected savings are not recouped soon.

Now let’s present a slightly different vision: "Bad Economy provides opportunities to small to medium enterprises leveraging hosted VoIP". Ok, as a title, it's also a little drab. But it encapsulates the intent a little better than the (much cooler) heading "Hosted VoIP allows Umbrella Corp new opportunities in global domination."

What does it mean? There's an entire business model that has been enabled by VoIP based around service - There are companies, such as M5 Networks, who make it their job to run VoIP phone systems for their clients as a service. I'm not going to to the details of hosted VoIP as a service - I'll just touch on a few points (and there are many more!) where having a Hosted VoIP system during times of serious recession can give us a significant advantage over the other businesses who are also trying to survive.

To make it sound more impressive, I'm going to make up a few big words to encapsulate some concepts: The first one I'm going to use is 'Spacialisation.' (I've no idea if it's a real word; If it's not, I want credit.)

Spacialisation: VoIP handset + internet connection means that an employees desk can be anywhere. Save on office space. Work from home some days, share a desk in the office on others (while keeping the same extension!). Move the Washington office in to that smaller space without needing to shift that big black box in the corner that used to provide phone service.

With people working from home, we've got some spare desks in the office - Lets sublet. Get a few extra phones, and our VoIP provider can set up a few more virtual phone systems for our sub tenants.

It's all about flexibility.

Future Featurability (Alliteration, that's what makes this one cool.) : A small, flexible organization with the communications features of a giant conglomeration. Hosted VoIP gives us access to a 'bigger' phone system than we'd be able to afford on our own. And doing more for less is a good thing right now.

Unstoppable Expansion: Tuned to the current economic climate, poised for the explosive growth that is going to occur during the inevitable recovery. A company using hosted VoIP can react and expand a lot quicker than one without - It's one less headache for growth.

It's easy to set up a satellite office, move to a larger space, or hire new staff at an existing space. Remember we don't need to worry about outgrowing our old phone system, or buying a new one for those remote locations. We've already got a global phone system with the capacity to service thousands of users. And we're only paying for what we use.

One final word (This is one of my favorites - You will note that I've used it already):
Domination. That's what the companies that have already made the switch to Hosted VoIP are going to be doing in the post-09 crash world.