The Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) solutions that are available in the market include a number of individual applications that deliver specific capabilities such as Unified Messaging, Collaboration and Presence Management.

 

In our latest series of surveys conducted in partnership with IntelliCom Analytics, we are asking enterprise decision makers to share their near- and mid-term plans for providing the different types of UC applications to their employees. This week’s research findings focus specifically on the use of Web conferencing applications such as Microsoft (News - Alert) LiveMeeting, WebEx and Lotus Sametime Connect that enable individuals and groups to more effectively collaborate and work together toward a common goal.

 

With more than 1,100 responses coming in from all Global Regions, the findings show that Web conferencing is enjoying broad support from business decision makers worldwide — with 78% of all participating North American companies, and 81% of their Global Region peers, confirming employee Web conferencing use by year’s end.

 

In terms of use by size of business, the data shows that Web conferencing applications will be most widely deployed in all regions by companies with more than 20 employees. This pattern of greater use was consistent across all mid-market and enterprise size segments, with the one exception that the number of “non-users” at the end of 2008 was twice as large in high-end Global Region firms as in equivalently-sized North American enterprises.

 

When the findings are viewed from the perspective of changes in usage between the end of 2008 and the end of 2010, Web conferencing penetration grows modestly to 84% for NA firms, and to 86% for the other Global Regions. Interestingly, by the end of 2010, the high-end Global Region enterprises have “closed the non-usage gap” and are essentially at par with their North American colleagues. Also worth noting — the participating Global Region companies with between 501 and 1,000 employees reported that they expect ALL of their employees to be using Web conferencing applications to some degree by the end of 2010.