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New Wainhouse Research Survey Reveals
Unified Communications May Not Be Strategic

11 August 2008, Duxbury, MA - Wainhouse Research has released its latest market metrics findings report, "Rich Media Metrics: Unified Communications and Collaboration 2008", which uses survey data to assess enterprise end user trends and preferences in the Unified Communications (UC) market.

The survey reveals that Unified Communications may have already shifted from a strategic issue capturing upper management mindshare to a tactical issue for others in the organization to wrangle with and implement. C-level executives are decision makers in less than 20% of the UC purchases - down from over 30% last year - and less than 10% of companies have established a UC strategy.

Conducted on-line in June 2008, the survey includes end user data from 48 multinational companies, 35 large organizations, and a number of SMBs. A sobering statistic reveals that although only 15% of companies have done a UC needs assessment, almost 50% either have selected or are in the process of selecting their UC vendors. Given that 52% of respondents have completed pilots or have pilot projects underway, UC may be relegated to somewhat of a "science project" in many companies, lacking process and managerial oversight, particularly in light of the fact that only 7% have completed a ROI analysis.

When it comes to unaided brand recognition in the UC market space, Cisco leads the way, followed closely by Microsoft; however, IBM's unaided mindshare as a UC player is extremely low.

When asked about which UC vendor client solution they would select, end users chose Microsoft above all others. Also-rans include Cisco, IBM, Nortel, Siemens, Avaya, and Alcatel Lucent.

These findings along many others on videoconferencing and collaboration are in the full report "Rich Media Metrics: Unified Communications and Collaboration 2008" which is available now at www.wainhouse.com/reports . The 23-page report in pdf format is $2,495.

The Wainhouse Research Rich Media Metrics program is a series of surveys intended to measure customer attitudes, preferences, and buying/deployment trends across a wide variety of conferencing and collaboration issues with channel partners (Q1), unified communications users (Q2), service provider customers (Q3), and videoconferencing users (Q4).

Contacts: About Wainhouse Research

Wainhouse Research (www.wainhouse.com) provides strategic guidance and insight on products & services for Real-Time Unified Communications. The global client base includes established and new technology suppliers and service providers as well as enterprise users of voice, video, streaming, distance education, and web collaboration solutions.

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