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May 16, 2008
What Enterprises Won't Admit
By Gary Kim, Contributing Editor
You might be surprised what mid-market or enterprise-sized organizations will consider as a VoIP solution, if a new study from from Research and Markets is correct. The firm recently surveyed North American organizations in the mid-sized (100-1,000 email users) and enterprise markets (+1,000 email users) and got some surprising answers.
"Enterprise telecom buyers will never openly admit to it, but nearly 40 percent of the respondents surveyed indicated their organizations would consider using a consumer or public VoIP solution instead of an in-house or private VoIP solution," Research and Markets says. That seems to be the case despite the fact that three out of four companies do not officially sanction the use of consumer or public VoIP services.
One might presume that such public or consumer VoIP solutions are seen as valuable for remote or traveling workers, as an adjunct to other solutions. Still, it is a surprising finding.
Other findings are in line with what you'd expect. More than seven out of 10 respondents expect VoIP to be important or “extremely important” to their organizations by late 2008.
More than three out of five organizations say they now view deploying unified communications at the end of 2008 as very important or “extremely important”.
Three-quarters of organizations insist that their IP-based phone system provide access to the Public Switched Telephone Network. One might interpret this finding as a requirement for special access circuits, not the broader need to connect to any telephone number. Research and Markets also notes that VoIP trunking could change the way that requirement is fulfilled. It is virtually inconceivable that a quarter of organizations deem PSTN access to be unimportant.
Nearly eight out of 10 respondents expect to converge their voice and data infrastructure. But where there is resistance it typically is because legacy applications and features would be lost.
The overwhelming majority of respondents not converging voice and data networks indicated that “substantial legacy telecom investments would be lost if we implemented VoIP."
On the cost savings front, respondents favor VoIP because it allows them to “use telephones from multiple vendors” (66 percent of respondents) rather than proprietary devices.
Seven out of ten respondents indicated that the price of a VoIP/PBX solution had to be substantially lower than the existing PBX (News - Alert) solution (or equivalent) and the same number indicated that “lower telephone costs” were a motivator or “strong motivator” for migrating to VoIP.
Organizations expect their VoIP systems to work as effectively as their current PBXs. Nine out of ten organizations will be extremely satisfied if they experience just five minutes of downtime per year (99.999 percent uptime).
However, satisfaction drops off rapidly at lower levels of reliability – only six out of ten companies will be satisfied with 53 minutes of downtime per year (99.99 percent uptime).
More than one-half of respondents indicated that integration with presence was a “motivator” or a “strong motivator” for migrating to VoIP.
Though interest in features is much stronger than in the past, enterprises still expect VoIP to save them money. And the most surprising finding is the willingness to consider “over the top,” consumer grade” solutions, even when enterprises now have policies in place forbidding such use.
Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a TMCnet Contributing Editor. Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) | X | | A PSTN number is a dialed call which is switched or connected via a CO switching system called a Class 5 End office or in SS7....more |
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 |
Voice over IP (VoIP) | X | | A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more |
(source: http://businessvoip.tmcnet.com/topics/applications/articles/28273-what-enterprises-wont-admit.htm)
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