Communications as a Service on Brink of Widespread Adoption in UK

By Linda Dobel, TMCnet Contributor

U.K. businesses are at the point of widespread adoption of communications-as-a-service (CaaS), according to a report from Computing.co.uk, which cites vendor surveys as the source of its optimism. The top reason companies are adopting cloud services, according to a report published by TMCnet.com, is faster deployment time and allowing IT staff to focus on more important business needs.

Research published in November 2010 by global provider of unified IP business communications solutions Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) found that as many as 64 percent of businesses in the U.K. have engaged or are seeking to engage some element of their communications to the cloud. The research was based on a poll of 100 C-level executives in companies that have more than 1,000 employees in the transport, retail, financial services and distribution sectors.

David Paulding, regional sales director for the U.K., Middle East and Africa at Interactive Intelligence, stated, "We have already seen many apps start to move towards the cloud – customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), HR apps and payroll and so on – and we are seeing a similar trend with cloud-based communications."  

But computing.co.uk notes that lack of trust in the cloud to deliver security and reliability of mission-critical voice and data communications could put a serious hitch in more companies jumping on the bandwagon with abandon.

Interactive Intelligence’s Paulding conceded that the largest potential barriers to CaaS adoption center on security, stating that concerns lie with "stipulations around where data resides, and a lack of control perceived with hosting comms outside the organization’s own domain." He believes, however, no one needs to worry about hackers being able to eavesdrop on VoIP calls over the Internet. As to other impediments to CaaS adoption, he added, "To a lesser extent, people are worried about pricing, ongoing costs, and reliability."

Reliability is an issue of real concern with Caas, though. In contrast to the Interactive Intelligence data, Steve Blood, research vice president at Gartner (News - Alert), stated, "It is fair to say adoption is minimal so far, but the same can be said for all cloud-based services."

He added, "There is more adoption of cloud-based applications [and SaaS (News - Alert)], but the big difference between applications and infrastructure is network latency and the ability to deliver real-time connectivity cheaply over the Internet. It works, but some companies have taken a leap and gone with cloud infrastructure services and found reliability to be a big issue. The smaller [CaaS] suppliers can be cheaper, more agile and innovative in the services they provide because they are not bogged down with too many processes. But the big concern is whether they are reliable or secure enough – companies will always value those qualities above availability and affordability.”

Interactive Intelligence is a Platinum sponsor of ITEXPO East 2011. To be held Feb. 2-4 in Miami, ITEXPO (News - Alert) is the world’s premier IP communications event. Visit Interactive Intelligence in booth #607. Don’t wait. Register now.

(source: http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/Analysis/articles/137906-communications-as-service-brink-widespread-adoption-uk.htm)