Robin Gareiss of Nemertes Research was kind enough to give me a peek at the slides from which she'll be drawing her talk for this Friday's VoiceCon Webinar (register here), and one thing I'm really glad about is that Nemertes is continuing to ask enterprises about the costs and benefits of a fundamental IP telephony implementation. The reason I'm glad is that this might seem like an outdated issue and one that could easily be neglected as old news, but of course it isn't--the cost picture has continued to evolve, as has the enterprise's own abilities to deal with the deployments as they gain experience. What Nemertes found should help you understand the ongoing picture.
Here are some of Robin's key findings about IP telephony costs:
Overall, capital costs are dropping
* Vendors are becoming much more competitive in pricing.
* Large companies report saving 30%-90% off list price when dealing directly with vendor-manufacturer.Implementation/operational prices higher first 2 years when compared to TDM
* As expertise grows, costs decrease.IT training (and cross-training) important
More companies spending budget on management tools
Many of these, such as the initial higher cost to run IPT, represent no change from the early days of the technology, but it's encouraging to see that aggressive negotiations can help you save money on the pricing.
That's especially important because, as Robin notes, enterprises are finding a need to deploy management systems and spend money on IT employee training as part of an IP telephony rollout. The more you can beat up your vendor on price--and with the competitive market being what it is now, they should be highly motivated to win customers--the more you can put that savings toward shortening the payback time via solid management and training.
I'm looking forward to Robin's talk--she'll be spending the entire hour (2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific) detailing key findings about IPT/UC business case, and of course she'll take questions as well. I hope you'll join us.
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