Last week, we had a chance to talk to execs from Objectworld, which focuses on small businesses, and to Siemens, which focuses on large customers, about the concerns their customers face when considering unified communications. Both types of customers see total cost of ownership and return on investment as major factors, though they differ on some elements of both considerations.

Objectworld recently announced support for Microsoft’s Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. In a separate announcement, Objectworld also claimed that its UC Server Standard Edition can provide businesses an ROI in as little as 15 days with enhanced productivity and reduced operational costs.

Given Objectworld’s focus on economical alternatives designed for the small business, we asked Vincent Guihan, Objectworld director of marketing and sales and David Schenekl, CTO about SMBs' top UC concerns. Schenekl noted TCO and ROI as critical, and suggested that SMBs more often consider how to solve a particular business problem rather than thinking about communications strategically. He said that TCO must be low and that SMB are sophisticated enough to consider both capital costs and operational costs. And when factoring ROI, SMBs do consider everything ranging from the cost of a fax machine and a fax line to the possible savings of employees’ time. He noted that a successful SMB UC sale depends on the “double whammy” of a low TCO and a fast ROI.

Siemens today released the results of a survey of large U.S. enterprises' views on UC, which found that 53% of respondents are actively pursuing UC installations. Some 16% have already installed UC systems, and 37% plan to do so within the next 24 months.

Janyce Harper, Siemens VP marketing and Trisha Cooper, director of strategic marketing said the survey confirmed their experience that large enterprises expect both to save money and to help meet or exceed customer service levels. When considering the business case, large enterprises (like SMBs) also factor in administrative and maintenance costs but tend also to be concerned about the need to protect their existing investments; one of the largest barriers to UC deployments was the belief that UC requires a “rip and replace” implementation—a misplaced concern in many cases, according to Siemens. Security concerns were also among the top issues for large customers.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.