The Yankee Group today released results of a study that show IP telephony solution providers need to focus on the basic features that make IP telephony work in corporate environments. The Yankee Group IP Telephony YankeeBrandMonitor indicated that attributes such as stability, reliability, and quality outweighed "future" benefits, such as technology leader and innovator.
Cisco Systems and IBM ranked number one and number two, respectively, in the study for deployment preference in the next two years.
Buyers rated vendors on a seven-point scale, where 1 indicated definitely will not implement and 7 indicated definitely will implement. Cisco (5.4) and IBM (5.1) were the only two vendors to score higher than 5. Avaya, Siemens and SBC tied for third with a score of 4.7. Verizon, Accenture and Nortel tied for sixth at 4.5, and the only two IXCs in the study, AT&T and MCI, were ninth and tenth respectively with scores of 4.4 and 4.0.
"To gain customer confidence and become a leader, IP telephony solutions providers need to focus more on proving to their customers that the IP telephony solutions work today and focus less on marketing the futuristic benefits of IP telephony," says Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group enterprise infrastructure vice president. "Cisco has taken an early leadership position in both IP telephony awareness and adoption preference. However, the market is still in the early-adopter phase, and there are many other solutions providers nipping at their heels."
Was Qwest measured in the survey?
Strange that apart from Siemens all are based based in North America. Perhaps not so funny when it comes from the Yankee group. Also, where are the disruptive vendors like Shoreline et al.
I venture to suggest the survey has questionable results. The buyer group chosen would be interesting to know, before purchasers rushed out to buy?