 Unified CommunicationsThis newsletter is sponsored by Juniper NetworksNetwork World's Unified Communications Newsletter, 07/03/07Businesses still not compelled to use IM, presenceBy Michael OstermanWe have just concluded a major study of instant messaging (IM), presence and real-time communications. Here’s a bit of what we found: * Among organizations that have not yet deployed enterprise IM as a pilot or in a production environment, the most commonly cited reason for not doing so is that no one has yet made a sufficiently strong business case for enterprise IM. This reason was mentioned far more often than the cost of enterprise IM, concerns about security or managing outbound content. * Presence will be much more important to most organizations, but it’s not important today. For example, only 19% of organizations told us that the integration of presence into other applications is a high priority now, but that number is expected to be 33% of organizations 12 months from now.
* A key finding from the study is that 75% of organizations told us that one of the primary factors that is holding back greater use of presence is that other priorities are more critical. IM and presence are today where e-mail was some time around 1995. Back then, you could still find people who were not convinced of the efficacy of e-mail in improving communications and who simply couldn’t come up with a business case for deploying it – today, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not believe in the value of e-mail for business communications. What will it take to break the seeming logjam in the IM, presence and real-time communications space? First, vendors will need to develop some really compelling applications that will motivate organizations to give IM and presence a greater role. Jabber, as just one example, has developed some really interesting applications for presence around knowledge management, data routing, emergency response and a variety of other areas. Second, organizational decision-makers will need to be proactive in understanding what IM and presence can do. As I’ve said before, e-mail’s ubiquity means that organizations can no longer gain any sort of competitive advantage from it. However, that is not the case with IM and presence – innovative use of IM and presence can speed organizational decision-making, provide better customer service, etc., in ways that can provide real competitive advantage simply because many of your competitors are probably not yet using these capabilities.
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| Contact the author: For webinars or research on messaging, or to join the Osterman Research market research survey panel, go here. Osterman Research helps organizations understand the markets for messaging and directory related offerings. To e-mail Michael, click here. This newsletter is sponsored by Juniper NetworksARCHIVEArchive of the Unified Communications Newsletter. BONUS FEATUREIT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007 |
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