Enterprises baffled by unified communications, survey finds

Other findings of the Forrester survey are:

• Managed telecom services are motivated by expected cost savings: Ninety-five per cent of the firms surveyed say expected cost savings are important in their decision to use managed telecom services, with 67 per cent considering cost savings to be very important. When it comes to choosing managed services beyond raw network services, unified communications is top of mind, with 61 per cent of firms interested in purchasing and 20 per cent already purchasing it. There is similar interest for Web conferencing and collaboration (52 per cent) and professional services (51 per cent).

• MPLS adoption continues; cost motivates decisions for international WAN buys: Site-to-site Internet-VPN full deployments are in the majority of enterprises. Ethernet and site-to-site MPLS show similar adoption, with about one-third fully deployed. Eighty-seven per cent of firms cite cost as an important issue in their choice to purchase international WAN services, with more than half (55 per cent) saying it is a very important factor. Variation in service availability in different markets (80 per cent) and inconsistent service delivery by the same vendor in different markets (77 per cent) also are important concerns.

• IP conferencing is popular; Cisco leads as an IP PBX supplier: Forty percent of firms have already deployed IP audio and IP Web conferencing, with videoconferencing (37 per cent) and IP PBX (29 per cent) not too far behind. Adoption continues to rise, as 49 per cent of firms are rolling out or evaluating audio- and Web conferencing. In addition, more than half will roll out or evaluate IP PBX and site-to-site WAN VoIP options in 2008. Of those rolling out or evaluating IP PBX, 65 per cent are interested in procuring VoIP as a managed service. When it comes to selecting a vendor for IP PBX, 62 per cent turn to Cisco, compared with 23 per cent for Avaya and Nortel.

• Word of mouth and Web sites are seen as most important sources of information: Decision-makers view their peers and colleagues -- and the information exchanged from traditional word of mouth -- as very important (33 per cent) and somewhat important (54 per cent) sources of information for informing purchasing decisions. However, they also report that digital media sources -- specifically vendor, industry or trade, or professional Web sites -- are very important (35 per cent) and somewhat important (54 per cent) digital sources of information. Nearly 50 per cent of firms view blogs and other interactive media as somewhat important sources of information.