Dimension Data, a $5.8 billion IT services firm, just took a deep look at the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) market as part of building its future managed voice strategy.
According to the Dimension research, customers are highly interested in UCC, but not everybody trusts this to the cloud. Forty-two percent of those surveyed want the gear to stay on-premises, but wish it all to be managed by a provider. The UCC market itself is poised for takeoff, with 78 percent of respondents saying they have a strategic UCC plan already in place.
The research was handled by Ovum, who interviewed some 320 customers.
The desire for on-premises gear is not that surprising, despite the fact that pure cloud or provider-based telephony have been proven to work and to scale. Large enterprises already have investments in legacy PBX equipment, equipment that has been proven to work. And completely outsourcing a mission-critical function like telephony requires a leap of faith that many are not yet willing to make.
This hybrid approach where the PBX hardware remains in house, but the management function is outsourced, may be the best of both worlds.
The demand for UCC is remarkably strong. “This is a surprising shift,” noted Craig Levieux, Dimension Data’s general manager for Converged Communications, “especially when economic conditions and operational constraints normally put the brake on enterprise communications investment. Typically, UCC has not been the subject of strategic ICT planning. In fact, until recently, UCC was largely synonymous with the corporate PBX, and the idea of formulating and rolling out a UCC strategy – even among large organizations – was alien.”
Dimension a Busy MSP
Dimension added to its communications credibility last month, having been granted Cisco’s Advanced IP Next-Generation Network Architecture Specialization. This specialization means Dimension can sell and deploy Cisco IP Next Generation Networks, which are robust, high-bandwidth networks based on Cisco gear that can handle the demands of the cloud, mobile and video.
In February, Dimension announced a managed service around Microsoft Lync. “With compelling enhancements such as improved enterprise architecture and voice, HD video conferencing, and SKYPE federation coming in Lync 2013, demand for Lync is set to grow within our client base,” said Peter Menadue, Dimension Data General Manager for Microsoft Solutions in February. “In fact, we have already received great interest in the platform. Dimension Data has tremendous experience as a managed services provider, and more and more clients were asking us to support and manage their Lync infrastructure. It therefore made sense for us offer Managed Services for Microsoft Lync. This service complements our existing Cloud Services for Lync, Managed Services for IPT and our Managed Services for Visual Communications offerings.”
Edited by
Rory J. Thompson
