According to a recent Forrester study, IP videoconferencing and unified messaging are gaining traction in North American and European enterprises, but the majority of enterprises are holding off purchasing these applications in 2005. In the study, we found that 29% of North American and 17% of European enterprises with 1,000 or more employees have fully deployed or are currently upgrading IP videoconferencing. Unified messaging is fully deployed or being upgraded in only 15% of North American enterprises and 14% of European enterprises. Despite the relative maturity of both applications, full-scale deployments are found in less than 30% of companies surveyed. However, there is reasonable growth potential for both unified messaging and IP videoconferencing, as enterprises upgrade to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based platforms. Although most enterprises plan to deploy these applications in-house, several companies, especially in Europe, said they would consider unified messaging applications and IP videoconferencing as a managed service. As standalone applications become integrated on SIP platforms, the market for these applications will accelerate.
