Microsoft, Cisco, IBM the preferred unified communications vendors

Just under 50 per cent of Australian organisations will deploy a videoconferencing or telepresence solution by the end of 2010, according to a report by research group, Frost & Sullivan.

Titled the Australian Unified Communications User Behaviour Report 2009, the report surveyed 370 IT managers and CIOs.

It highlighted the Government and healthcare verticals as key opportunities, with Microsoft, Cisco and IBM rated the preferred vendors. Nokia was rated by CIOs and IT managers as having the best enterprise mobile strategy, followed by RIM.

Justifying ROI remains a high priority for decision makers, with 50 per cent saying the adoption of UC technologies would be enhanced if vendors provided ROI tools and calculators.

Frame Group infrastructure solutions manager, Mark Harriss, echoed the report’s findings, saying there was plenty of traction in UC with certain types of customers.

“If a customer has a legacy PABX infrastructure then it’s easy to justify a new solution, but if not, we’re finding either the business cases don’t stand up, or are very slow on the uptake,” Harriss said.

“Customers need to bring their networks up to a certain level to run unified communications, and the ability to integrate with other business cases makes it a good proposition for us.

“Over the next few months we expect to see more leveraging of the underlying unified communications infrastructure, and tighter integration with other business systems.”

In a separate report released last year, titled Australia Unified Communications Services Report 2008, Frost & Sullivan predicted Australian UC market revenue would double in the next six years after it hit $340.2 million in 2007 – representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7 per cent between 2007 and 2014.

NSC managing director, Craig Neil, said that while unified communications is generally a growth market, there are some areas that are less interesting to organisations than others.

“We’re finding that messaging and traditional unified communications is not doing so well at the moment,” Neil said. “There is interest there, but it is slow going.

“Every application needs to show a solid ROI before it will be considered. Those with a faster ROI will be fast tracked.”

The latest Frost & Sullivan report also claimed 75 per cent of organisations preferred on-premise solutions rather than hosted UC services over a concern for loss of control. However, it felt this may change in 2009 as organisations look to further save costs.

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