Communications and Technology Industry Research

Last week’s reader survey revealed that the majority of responding businesses worldwide have no current plans to deploy Unified Communications Applications. The question of timing aside, we were also interested in seeing who our TMC (News - Alert) subscribers and Web site visitors would look to as a preferred supplier at whatever point they did decide to deploy UC in their businesses.

 

The results of our latest research survey conducted in partnership with IntelliCom Analytics suggest that although the IP Telephony providers are perhaps the most vocal set of industry players in encouraging UC adoption, they are by no means the only game in town.

 

Of the 699 business decision makers participating in the survey, over 63% of North American-headquartered enterprises do not view IPT system providers as their preferred source for Unified Communications (News - Alert). For businesses outside of NA, an even greater percentage of firms — 66.4% — would not view IPT providers as their top choice.

 

Although IPT vendors were the single largest preferred supplier for NA businesses (36.5%), technology consultants and business application providers took the second and third slots, with desktop application providers coming in last with an 8% share. This last result was surprising given Microsoft’s (News - Alert) recent entry and announcement of its Unified Communications solutions.

 

The UC provider landscape was equally fractured for businesses outside of NA, with IPT providers similarly in the lead, with systems integrators the next largest choice. As in North America, global decision makers saw desktop providers as the least preferred vendor.