UK left struggling as UC adoption surges

Research by Dimension Data shows UK has worst unified communications record

Vendors have been urged to do more to educate the channel following research indicating the UK is lagging behind the US, Australia and continental Europe in adoption of unified communication (UC) technology.

According to research commissioned by VAR Dimension Data (DiData), 33 per cent of UK firms have adopted IP telephony, comparing dismally to 60 per cent in the US and the joint second-lowest figure of the seven western countries surveyed.

Likewise, the UK trailed only Switzerland in adoption of videoconferencing infrastructure and was the only country where none of the firms surveyed had adopted mobile voice over IP (VoIP).

One concerned industry onlooker commented: “This doesn’t look good for the UK. It comes down to the fact that we don’t educate our channel properly in selling the benefits of unified communications. Too many resellers are selling it as just a replacement to PBXs on cost benefits.”

Simon Welch, marketing director at IT group Horizon Technology Group, which recently launched a UC division (CRN, 26 July), said he was not surprised by the findings and agreed there was a need for much greater emphasis on channel education.

“We seem to have had a period where the UK has been quite slow in delivering the appropriate bandwidth across the country,” he said. “People have experienced a slow service so are not confident in moving into the IP domain in the corporate environment.

“There are lots of resellers in the voice channel that don’t have the skill sets to go wider than a telephony solution. They can’t be expected to invest in UC. The distributor must deliver an integrated solution that the reseller can sell and then support them on implementation.”

Didata said the overall results of the poll, which was carried out by research house Datamonitor, were well ahead of market expectations.

It said 37 per cent of organisations are using IP telephony now, while 34 per cent would make the investment in the next two years.