Businesses will spend in the region of $20 billion on unnecessary IP telephones with screens, says US research firm Gartner.
As the migration to IP telephony systems continues, many businesses will needlessly spend $20.3 billion on expensive IP screen phones from 2005 through the beginning of 2010, the company says. In the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, this will amount to more than five billion euros, it says.
"Many companies are replacing old phones with fancy, screen-based IP phones and IP/PBXs with related hardware. However, most users continue to use the new phones like their old phones, only with a few new capabilities, such as viewing missed calls or for directory dialling," says Bob Hafner, managing VP for Gartner.
"Ironically, in most businesses, the IP screen phone is placed on the desk beside a PC that has a much bigger and higher-resolution screen."
During the next five years, Gartner estimates businesses worldwide will buy over 150 million IP phones; in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, businesses will buy over 50 million IP phones. In both regions, for 75% of those purchases, companies are spending at least $150 more than is necessary.
This is because companies will "focus on purchasing IP screen phones when a better solution might be buying low-end IP phones without a screen and logically tying the PC to that phone with unified communications (UC) applications," says Gartner.
"Companies must think about how they communicate and how this will change in the coming years," says Hafner. "We are not saying that you don`t need an IP phone on your desk, but with limited budgets, companies should immediately reset their priorities from having high-end IP screen phones to having a low-end IP phone and UC applications that improve productivity.
"They should only consider IP screen phones when they have the UC applications and there is still money left in the budget."
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