* Phone screening with a twist
As your enterprise implements IP telephony, ask your procurement staff to give careful consideration to the type of IP phones users need. According to Gartner, companies will waste $20.3 billion on expensive IP phones with screens by the year 2010.
“Many companies are replacing old phones with fancy, screen-based IP phones and IP/PBXs with related hardware, however most users continue to use the new phones like their old phones, only with a few new capabilities, such as viewing missed calls or for directory dialing,” says Bob Hafner, managing vice president for Gartner.
He notes that in many organizations, users put IP screen phones on their desk next to PCs that have bigger, higher-resolution screens. IP phones with screen displays carry a price premium of at least $150, making them a budget buster. A better choice, Hafner contends, is to buy a low-end IP phone without a screen and tie users’ PCs to their phones with unified communications applications. Unified communications apps improve productivity by creating a converged desktop for voice communications, instant messaging, unified messaging, presence, conferencing and mobility services.
Who should get IP screen phones, you might ask? Employees who don’t already have a PC on their desk, such as those who work in retail, healthcare and manufacturing. Otherwise, spend the money on unified communications applications and if you have anything left in your budget, only then should you consider an IP screen phone, Hafner advises.
More information can be found in the Gartner report, “Don’t Purchase IP Screen Phones If You Have a PC on Your Desk,” which is available for purchase at Gartner’s Web site.
