More businesses are looking to cut costs by outsourcing some of their operations. Cloud computing is more accepted as a solution for hosting websites and other networked operations, but even PBXs, the backbone of business communications, have been getting the treatment thanks to the growing hosted PBX (News - Alert) market.

According to a new report by Infonetics, hosted PBX is a growing segment of the telecommunications industry. The VoIP industry is expected to be worth over $74.5 billion by 2015, and the managed VoIP PBX is expected to double by 2016.

"More small, medium and large business customers are adapting to the new technology and features offered by hosted PBX resellers in order to cut back on costs," said Chris Griffith, CEO at White Label Communications. "It is not news that businesses are looking for ways to reduce expenses and save time, but the idea that they are turning to outsourcing their communications systems points to a promising future for the telephony trade."

The growth of the market has been driven by the VoIP revolution, especially with products like Digium's (News - Alert) Asterisk software, which can turn any computer into a PBX. As PBX functionality migrates from hardware to software, a remotely hosted PBX becomes viable.

A remotely hosted PBX gives businesses more flexibility than a traditional PBX. Calls can be routed to mobile phones, which is an important feature in the age of growing BYOD (bring your own device) policies.

A hosted PBX means fewer installation headaches for IT staff, since the PBX will be running in a remote location. The customers don't own any hardware, which also cuts down on the cost of running a business phone system. The PBX hardware is maintained by the provider.

This makes a hosted PBX very attractive to small and medium-sized businesses that have advanced needs but don't want to deal with installing byzantine phone systems.