UC
Ninety-five percent of companies have deployed VOIP to at least some portion of their users, while another 2% are planning to deploy in 2011, leaving just 2% with no plans for adoption. However, more companies now classify their deployment as “limited” versus “growing”, meaning they are only deploying VOIP where they have to; e.g. new locations or where they have to replace obsolete equipment.
Now that VOIP has achieved nearly ubiquitous deployment status, long gone are the debates over whether or not VOIP is a suitable replacement for digital systems. Now, the challenge has shifted into how best to deploy and manage VOIP-based telephony systems, and how to integrate voice plans with unified communications.
As usage of VOIP has increased, the rate of adoption has slowed slightly, with 33% of companies now pursuing a “limited” deployment strategy versus 29% in 2009. Among larger companies we heard several instances of a slow down in deployment for two reasons:
± Concerns over capital cost investments required to replace legacy telephony systems with IP; particularly in areas such as LAN infrastructure required to support power over Ethernet (PoE)
± Concerns around future direction of VOIP as UC deployments grow. The argument here goes something along the lines of “why should I spend to replace my legacy phone system with a new phone system when my employees will increasingly transition to softphones and/or mobile phones as their primary communication interfaces, and when an increasing percentage of employees work remotely”
Several Nortel customers also said they had slowed down their plans until they get a better idea of where Avaya is taking the Nortel product line, or to allow them to evaluate alternatives to Avaya.
Almost universally those that were speeding up, or continuing deployments cited a positive business case. As most companies still face flat or falling IT budgets, the need to show positive ROI often trumps all other concerns when planning for VOIP roll-outs.
The bottom line, while IT managers no longer need to justify VOIP technology, a business case is still important for justifying VOIP spending.
