Press Release
March 27, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Complex Networks Lead To Falling VOIP Vendor Ratings
Shortel continues to impress IT executives according to Nemertes study
NEW YORK, NY -- March 27, 2007 – IT executive ratings of their IP telephony vendors have declined this year, according to Nemertes Research latest benchmark volume, “Voice Over IP: State of Deployment, Architecture, Vendor Ratings, ” which has tracked vendor performance in several categories for the past four years. The study, based on five months of in-depth interviews with more than 120 IT executives, finds that vendors need to improve the most in the areas of management tools, ease of installation and troubleshooting, and customer service. IT executives rated vendors highest in product features, overall performance, and technology.
Complex networks with multiple applications, higher end-user performance expectations—including assistance with VOIP implementation and operations—are some of the key factors behind the decline this year. As IT executives’ expectations increase, vendors are left to provide sophisticated management tools and simplified roll outs.
ShoreTel won all categories highlighted in the report for the fourth straight year. Avaya and Cisco shared the middle ratings, while Nortel scored lowest among the top vendors. “We attribute some of ShoreTel’s success to the size of their rollouts; they’re generally not as complex as Avaya or Cisco’s,” said Robin Gareiss, executive vice president and senior founding partner for Nemertes Research. “But it’s also due to the company culture, customer service, and best practices.”
Other key findings of the research include:
* Avaya’s rollouts are the largest, in terms of number of end units connected to VOIP switches, followed by Cisco, Nortel and Shortel;
* Distributed architectures are the most common, followed by regional and centralized;
* Voice over IP deployments continued to increase with 61% of companies engaged in a growing or limited rollout, and nearly 20% already fully deployed;
* Companies are increasingly turning to Managed Service Providers to oversee voice over IP. Year over year, the percentage increased from 6% to 14%.
* IT/networking teams operating VOIP rollouts with more than five locations tend to buy third-party management tools, including Prognosis (most-often used), Infovista, Net IQ, Fluke/Visual, and others;
* Different people or groups are involved with the strategic and tactical decisions. CIOs are less involved with vendor decision-making, while directors are more involved;
* Organizations are assembling multi-functional project teams to handle tactical deployment.
The benchmark includes detailed ratings for each vendor, as well as specifics on why organizations are turning to third parties for management, how they are organizing internally, and VOIP architecture trends.
About the Benchmark
The report is part of a nine volume benchmark titled “Building a Successful Virtual Workplace,” which examines several key areas including WAN and branch-office infrastructure, convergence deployments, collaboration and unified-communications best practices and mobility strategies. In addition to the detailed research based on discussions with 120 IT executives, Nemertes will also look at the vertical market implications.
About Nemertes Research
Nemertes Research is an analyst firm that specializes in analyzing and quantifying the business value of emerging technologies. We select technical and business issues to research based on input from our clients and benchmarks participants. You can learn more about Nemertes Research at our website www.nemertes.com.