So reads the headline in an article written by Jim Duffy, based on a presentation he received from Gartner. The graphic below has been touted by Gartner for a couple of years. The sad fact is that maybe 80% of enterprises have such a relationship with Cisco- all are paying premium prices and many are locked-in via proprietary technologies.

Who benefits- well it’s true that the enterprise has ‘one throat to choke’ as one customer called it, but is there any doubt that Cisco is the real beneficiary of the generosity of its paying customers?

What should you do if you are one of these enterprises? Is this the path to zero budget unified communications? As a minimum, it would be responsible of enterprises to ask the question: where do I want to be on the vendor influence curve?

Whether you are an American law office, an Asian manufacturer or a European bank, you are probably opinionated on this topic. What do you think?