According to survey results, 11.1% of companies are planning short-term investments in IP telephony and a further 10.3% are considering such investments over the next two years. Survey results also indicate that within two years of fixed-to-mobile service availability more than 45% of companies in business services and retail/wholesale will have migrated to a converged communications service. "Fixed-to-mobile convergence will happen in multiple stages and the pace of transition will differ considerably from a vertical market perspective," said Nina Bonagura , senior research analyst, European Vertical Markets. "Indeed, while just over 30% of companies are willing to change their communication services strategy between 6 to 24 months after fixed-to-mobile converged service availability, specific vertical markets reveal a higher propensity to undergo such investments within this time span."
From a vertical market perspective four sectors, namely insurance/other finance, banking, education, and transport/communications/utilities, will have reached an IP telephony penetration higher than 60%, while adoption in all other verticals, with the exception of retail/wholesale, process manufacturing, and healthcare will exceed 50%. By far, the main driver for IP telephony adoption centers around cost benefits with 65.6% of respondents indicating voice communications cost reduction to be the primary IP telephony benefit, followed by 45.3% and 23.9% respectively indicating data communications and overall service management cost reduction benefits.
This IDC study, Voice and Data Convergence in Western European Vertical Markets: 2006 IDC Survey (Doc # M04N ), by Nina Bonagura and Giacomo Laurini, is based on the results of IDC's European Vertical Market survey, and provides more details on, among other things, IT spending directions, solution priorities, investment plans, embracement of new technologies, and role of IT within the organization, by company size, country, and vertical market.