Monday, January 29, 2007

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TelecomWeb: Microsoft’s Disruptive Impact on the IP Telephony Market

PR WEB January 29, 2007  Parsippany, NJ A new InfoTrack market research study describes in detail the disruptive impact Microsoft is having on the market for IP Telephony (IPT) systems as well as on the market for Unified Communications (UC) applications.

In June 2006, Microsoft announced an expansion of its UC strategy to include Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007, which could serve as a complete IPT system. Microsoft already had been offering a set of UC applications, including instant messaging, presence and Web collaboration, and it had developed business-partner relationships with all of the major PBX and IPT manufacturers, including Avaya and Cisco. Once OCS 2007 becomes available, Microsoft could be competing directly with its former business partners.

The InfoTrack study surveyed 227 decision-makers in Information Technology and Telecommunications. “Microsoft’s Disruptive Impact on the IP Telephony Market” answers the following questions:

• How familiar are enterprise and SMB decision-makers with Microsoft’s new UC product line?
• How many expect to implement a complete Microsoft solution for both UC applications and an IPT platform?
• Does familiarity with the new product line correlate with the number of new adoptees?
• Does adoption of the new product suite depend on a company’s current status regarding IPT implementation?
• How many companies intend to delay their IPT decision in order to evaluate the Microsoft products?
• How many companies would prefer the Microsoft version of the most popular UC applications instead of the version developed by their IP PBX         manufacturer/vendor?

 
“More than half of the decision-makers who participated in this study prefer to obtain the Microsoft version of the most popular UC applications,” says Terry White, vice president and senior program director of the InfoTrack’s converged communications practice. “And a significant percentage expects to implement a complete solution from Microsoft for both UC apps and IPT. That percentage is relatively consistent among enterprises (more than 500 employees) and SMBs (fewer than 500 employees), both in the United States and internationally.”

“Microsoft’s Disruptive Impact on the IP Telephony Market” is the first in a series of three primary research reports that will be released this year aimed at monitoring any changes in market demand for these new products. For more information about this new program, visit http://www.telecomweb.com/microsoftreport1/ or contact Craig Born at 973/602-0123 or cborn@telecomweb.com.

About the InfoTrack on Microsoft and Disruptive Convergence (IMDC) Program

“Microsoft’s Disruptive Impact on the IP Telephony Market” is the initial report in a new primary research program, InfoTrack on Microsoft and Disruptive Convergence (IMDC), that evaluates the reaction of buyers of IPT and UC to Microsoft’s actions in this market.  This program is a spinoff of the InfoTrack for Converged Communications (ICC) program. Both programs are driven by primary research studies involving a proprietary research panel of 4,000 information technology (IT) and telecommunications decision-makers.

About TelecomWeb

TelecomWeb encompasses global market-intelligence InfoTrack reports; daily e-letter TelecomWeb news break; TelecomWeb wireless, TelecomWeb broadband and TelecomWeb policy content packages; tariff consultancy Tarifica; and the Web-based business-telephony-product database TelecomTactics. To learn more about TelecomWeb, please visit www.TelecomWeb.com.

Contacts:
Terry White, vice president and senior program director/converged communications, 800/610-3109, twhite@telecomweb.com       

Sharon Valencik, research & marketing director, 800/610-3109, telecom@telecomweb.com