Gartner Barks up the Wrong Tree? Or do they?
This headline, especially when catching it in comments from other blog posts, is a real eye-catcher.
IP screen phones a waste: GartnerGartner today said 75 percent of all IP phone purchases over the next five years will be a waste of money.
The analyst said companies will gravitate towards purchasing IP screen phones when a better solution may be a screenless phone tied to a computer through an application.
Gartner said IP screen phones can offer productive applications for users, but these features come at a much greater cost than using a PC.
Gartner managing vice president Bob Hafner said with the money saved buying cheaper IP phones, companies should focus their spend on unified communications applications.
But in context, it's more accurate than one might think. I'm working on a post that speaks to the importance of application integration in the success of VoIP and unified communications. If you read this closely, I have to agree with Gartner. Telephone sets are a commodity - even the fancy VoIP phones with dazzling displays. Don't get sucked into the feature/function battles of commodity hardware. Focus instead on the user experience and enabling people to do the things they need to do.
Technorati Tags: Gartner, VoIP, unified communications
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Comments
I agree. I believe the PC is a great platform due to the huge amounts of data, video and applications that will accompany voip. A small phone for audio is all that's needed if a headset won't do.
However, I believe that PC's need to better process the real-time VVoip if a phone isn't used. An extra embedded DSP or chip needs to focus on the audio and video streams. I believe Intel has begun work on this.
Posted by: Rick | August 21, 2006 2:26 PM