This study draws on the results of IDC'sEuropean Vertical Market Survey, carried out between April and August 2010 in the top 5 Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.) among 1,130 SMBs with 20–499 employees. The survey looks at vertical market IT spending directions; IT solutions adoption, solutions priorities, and investment plans; adoption and plans for mobile/wireless solutions; and the familiarity, adoption, and plans for a range of technologies including virtualization, storage and server consolidation, networked storage, green datacenters, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and IP telephony. This study provides a snapshot of the impact of IP telephony solutions in the SMB market so far, focusing on current adoption trends and future adoption plans, while also investigating what SMB end users perceive as the main benefits and inhibitors to voice and data convergence adoption. Results are also given for the top 5 Western European countries and for Western Europe in total for the following vertical markets: financial services (including banking and insurance/other finance), discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, business services/transport, telecom/media, utilities/oil and gas, retail/wholesale, healthcare, and government/education.
"Cost reduction in voice communication is going to be one of the major areas of focus in the next couple of years among small and medium-sized organizations in Western Europe. Furthermore, the strong links between unified communications and collaboration (UCC) and the IP telephony market mean that UCC adoption will also drive the IP telephony market. By mid-2012, more than 50% of Western European SMBs will adopt some kind of IP telephony to reach this goal. However, telecom providers should pay attention to the 30% of companies not planning any investment in IP telephony and the large amount of uncertainty regarding which kind of IP telephony solution new investors will adopt," said Giacomo Laurini, senior research analyst, IDC European Vertical Markets.