Most messaging and unified communications deployments remain on-premise

Sadly, this will be my last newsletter for Network World. However, Osterman Research is still going strong and has been blessed to actually see an increase in business despite the soft economy. My hope is that all of us will soon experience our businesses accelerating as we see the current economic downturn fade into the distance.

While much has changed in the messaging and unified communications markets over the past nine years that I have been writing this newsletter, some things have not changed all that much. For example, in looking over the very first newsletter I wrote for Network World, published in early January 2000, my topic was the potential growth of hosted and outsourced messaging with the question of why more organizations had not migrated to this method of managing their messaging services. While we’re seeing lots of talk today about cloud-based computing, software-as-a-service, remotely managed services and the like, most messaging and unified communications deployments remain on-premise, managed by in-house personnel, just like they were nine years ago.

My next newsletter, also published in early January 2000, focused on Microsoft and Lotus battling it out for the leading positions in the corporate messaging market. Although Microsoft has gained share during that time, the situation is not dramatically different than it was then – Exchange and Notes are still the leading corporate messaging systems, although many smaller players continue to thrive and new ones have emerged since that time.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience writing this newsletter for Network World and I look forward to working with their fine staff in the future. If you would still like to receive my new newsletter, which will begin publication in January, please sign up for it here. This newsletter, which will be published by MessagingWire will continue to focus on messaging and unified communications issues. I look forward to communicating with you through the new publication.