Does it surprise you as much as it does us that nearly one-fifth of enterprises are not even considering Unified Communications and collaboration technology now, or planning to in the next three years?
That data point leaped out at us in a piece that Melanie Turek of Frost & Sullivan wrote over at NoJitter, based on a survey that her organization did of 200 top executives. Nineteen percent of the respondents said they aren’t considering UC at all and have no plans to deploy it in the next three years.
We’ll admit to a lack of objectivity when it comes to UC, but we’re blown away by this. After all, we aren’t talking about companies like Bob’s Auto Shop or Sally’s Hair Salon. We’re talking about corporations big enough to have CIOs and CEOs and other C-something-Os. And they’re not even thinking about UC? It’s baffling.
Once you clear that mental hurdle, though, the Frost & Sullivan survey does reflect some strong positives regarding UC. A third of the companies involved have implemented UC, virtualized UC and collaboration applications, or communications-enabled business processes. And based on what they said about their plans, that penetration should double in the next few years. A few other noteworthy data points:
• Just under half of companies use a single provider or two providers for UC. That is expected to change, particularly among larger organizations, with more companies going with multiple vendors, so long as the solutions are tightly integrated.
• One-fourth of companies use hosted services only or managed services only, with 15 percent using both. Three-fourths of survey respondents said they expect their use of hosted services to increase, with 59 percent anticipating similar growth for managed services.
• Cost is an issue in hosted services, with CAPEX avoidance as a positive, but fears that recurring monthly costs could mean a higher overall TCO as a potential negative.
But we're still obsessing over the uninterested 19 percent. We’d still love to know why so many companies would shun UC. If you work for such a company or know people who do, and you have some insight to share, please send along a comment.
