A recent IDG Research Services survey of CIOs from across the U.S. shows strong and increasing adoption of IP
telephony. The survey also details the business imperatives driving this adoption, including the need for greater access to advanced telephony applications, improved management of distributed operations, and reduced costs.
The survey showed that 63% of respondents plan to deploy an IP PBX within the next 12 months, up from 50% now deploying some form of the technology.
“The good news is that IP telephony has a great deal to offer the enterprise, and CIOs are seeing the tangible benefits of this technology,” said Joseph A. Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) Inc., a global developer of business communications software specializing in voice over IP and the primary sponsor of the study. “However, I think it’s critical that CIOs understand an IP PBX (News - Alert) deployment doesn’t automatically translate into greater flexibility and reduced costs. Many IP PBXs today, are, in fact, still hardware-centric and built largely on proprietary standards.”
In order to ensure maximum value from an IP PBX, Staples advises CIOs to press hard on potential vendors about things like a single interface for administration, security architecture, adoption of the open SIP standard, breadth of applications, and integration with back-office systems.
Respondents surveyed expressed concerns over factors such as network readiness (44%) and reliability (43%).
“I’m actually glad to see that network readiness and reliability are top-of-mind for CIOs,” Staples said. “These concerns are extremely valid, but thankfully, they can largely be addressed by applying vendor selection criteria based on extensive IP telephony customer references and demonstrated expertise in network readiness assessments.”
“Many traditional telephony, networking and even data vendors are now offering some form of IP PBX,” Staples said. “CIOs shouldn’t assume that big-name vendors with established roots in related markets are also experienced in providing sophisticated IP-based communications applications. This is an extremely important distinction when you consider that today it’s the enhanced applications that are driving the real value of IP PBXs.”
The survey also found that performance (74%) and security (63%) are the most important criteria when selecting an IP communications solution.
“It’s critical for businesses to probe vendors about security features, such as their ability to encrypt both recorded and live calls, and their systems’ ability to handle communications between secure and non-secure devices,” Staples said. “These types of questions have major implications for not just security, but cost and performance as well.”
According to respondents, unified messaging, speech recognition, videoconferencing, mobility, and teleworking were the most popular voice over IP-enabled applications. Unified messaging showed the most significant potential for growth, with 30% of respondents indicating they already had the application in use, but an additional 49 percent saying they plan to deploy it within the next 12 months.
“These survey results show that unified messaging may finally be hitting its stride,” Staples said. “However, given that 46% of respondents also plan to deploy ‘unified communications,’ it’s very likely that UM will be cost-justified as part of a more comprehensive UC solution purchase, which would include other productivity-enhancing applications, such as presence management and call follow-me/find-me.”
Spencer Chin is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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Private Branch Exchange (PBX) | X |
| Originally, telephone features were provided by telephone central office switching systems, often called CENTREX.�PBX systems emerged as customers wanted to have more calling features and control over...more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X |
| IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) | X |
| SIP is the real-time communication protocol for VoIP. SIP is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification (emergency calling) and instant messaging.
SIP...more |
Unified Messaging | X |
| One of the more interesting applications for multi-media messaging
which has been around for almost a decade but not widely used is
visual voice mail. This software allows the user to see their voi...more |
Voice over IP (VoIP) | X |
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