Cisco: the IP PBX of choice?

Almost two thirds of the 2,187 North American and European companies surveyed choose a Cisco IP PBX in their VoIP deployments, Forrester Research found. These results and more are from a study on SMB and enterprise networking plans for 2008. Forrester conducted the research in the first quarter. Forrester found that over half of its respondents will roll out or evaluate IP PBX and site-to-site WAN VoIP options in 2008. Out of those rolling out or evaluating IP PBX, 65% are interested in procuring VoIP as a managed service.

When it comes to selecting a vendor for IP PBX, 62% turn to Cisco Systems, compared with 23% for Avaya and Nortel, Forrester found.

But the vendors still have work to do on communication. Most small and large enterprises are uncertain of the benefits of a unified communications implementation, of which VoIP is the bedrock.

Fifty-five percent of the companies queried by Forrester said there is "confusion about the value" of UC for their company. Only 11% of the firms have already deployed UC. 

"Because they're not able to define it very clearly for themselves and the supplier landscape is confusing, that translates to confusion about what it does for their company," Forrester analyst Ellen Daley says. "It's hard to prove that ROI right now." 

Companies understand the components of UC - VoIP, unified messaging, presence, multimedia conferencing, collaboration, etc. - but the value of the overall pitch is vague. 

"We think there's enough confusion in the marketplace on value, features and (marketing) that we're going to see very long evaluation and pilot periods," Daley says.