Businesses say they are interested in unified communications but still face some of the same obstacles that prevented them from adopting VoIP a few years ago, according to a study by Nemertes Research.

While interviews with 120 IT executives reveal that 79% of respondents either already use or are planning to use unified communications, but 60% say their collaboration and communications staffs are separate, according to the study’s author Irwin Lazar, a principal research analyst with Nemertes.

“We had some say instant messaging was being rolled out [via Microsoft Live Communications Server] by their e-mail and Exchange groups, but their telecom group didn’t know about it,” Lazar says.

The idea of unified communications is to blend voice, video, instant messaging and conferencing with presence, collaboration, messaging and calendaring, but that requires multiple groups to cooperate, he says. So far only 10% of businesses have their IT departments structured to handle collaboration effectively, the study results say.

Another hurdle is justifying the cost of implementing unified communications, he says. “You can understand some of the benefits of collaboration, for example, but it’s hard to put numbers around it,” he says. So even if they can show collaboration would save employees an hour a week, there is no guarantee that would translate into increased productivity, respondents said in interviews for the study.

A call agent talking to a customer could use unified communications to conference in a subject-matter expert to close a sale, for example, but that possibility doesn’t necessarily loosen purse strings to implement a unified communications project. “They understand the value of mobility and collaboration, but it’s hard to demonstrate the actual [dollar] value,” he says.

Up to 75% of those interviewed say they are aware of Microsoft efforts in collaboration with Office Communications Server, but they still have reservations about relying on Microsoft for all elements of unified communications, Lazar says.

“Enterprises are comfortable with Microsoft as an uber-Buddy List for instant messaging, but less so with their phone system,” he says. “That’s something they don’t have much interest in.” They prefer to rely on a traditional telecom provider for VoIP and use middleware to blend it with instant messaging and presence, he says.