Optimizing Unified Communications SurveyOptimizing Unified Communications Survey

A user survey finds piecemeal implementation and almost universal need for third-party integration help.

Determining how many Unified Communication (UC) components are in use can be tricky. The definition of UC varies from vendor to vendor and enterprise to enterprise. Breaking down the UC components into separate categories helps us understand the penetration of UC into the enterprise.

A modest survey of 60 enterprises, “Optimizing Unified Communications, April 2011 from the Info-Tech Research Group has some interesting information. Of the enterprises responding, 55% had 500 or more employees. The results of the survey published in this blog are from a private review of the survey results and are not available publicly.

The following chart from the survey shows Cisco positioned as the most commonly implemented UC vendor at 46% followed by Microsoft at 43%. Use of multiple UC component vendors came next at 21%, IBM at 20% and Avaya at only 18%. The survey does not provide the reason for so low a showing for Avaya, but it may be due to mostly IT departments implementing the UC components with less influence by telecom groups.

The next chart covers what components of UC have been implemented by the survey respondents.

This chart shows that the most popular technology is IP Telephony (69%) followed by video conferencing (65%) and web conferencing (63%). Instant Messaging comes next at 61% and desktop VoIP at 57%. It is a bit surprising that Unified Messaging comes in at 55% since this capability has been on the market for years.

The next chart presents the application side of UC. This chart is a little less useful since fewer than half the respondents answered this question, but it is still enlightening.

The majority of respondents implemented UC for the integrated communication and collaboration interfaces (78%). Communication & collaboration tool integration with core applications was second at 63%. Workflow optimization via collaboration tools was third with 59%. Integrated presence was last at 56%.

Another part of the survey asked respondents about the difficulty of implementing UC. Here are some opinions expressed by the respondents:

* 76% thought third party expertise was needed to proceed with additional UC optimization.
* 67% thought their internal IT resources were not sufficient to continue UC optimization.
* 72% thought substantial user training was required.
* 94% thought that third party expertise was critical to successful UC deployment.

I drew these conclusions when interpreting the survey:

* UC is still implemented in pieces, not as a total environment.
* Third parties will be a major part of UC implementation projects.
* Users will require a lot of training to gain the benefits of UC.