No Jitter’s recent research sheds some light on Skype’s initiative into the business communication arena, known as Skype for Business, previously Microsoft Lync. The study reveals that 90% of Skype for Business adopters voted it as a better solution than their traditional PBX systems.
The survey included 540 enterprise IT professionals, among whom more than half (52%) had adopted or are already using Skype for Business. Besides giving it big thumbs up, 80% believe that it delivers better functions and features, and 63% found its voice quality more superior than standard PBX systems.
Another emerging trend within this debacle is the transition of Lync Online into an enterprise-class unified communication system. With almost 60% of adopters using it for instant messaging, more than 70% for Web conferencing and nearly 25% for enterprise voice/PBX replacement – hosted Skype for Business solutions will also increase numbers for Skype-powered PBX systems.
These numbers come as a surprise in the wake of all this positive feedback – the implementation rate for Skype for Business is fairly slow. Among all surveyed, 27% of respondents are using it for voice, while another 46% will take three-plus years to fully implement Skype for Business as an enterprise voice solution. The other 20% showed absolutely no interest in using it in the near future.
So what do these trends and numbers tell us? Moving forward:
• Unified communication services providers will find it difficult to contain the traction of Skype for Business. With the highly positive feedback from the early adopters, the news will spread quickly to potential customers and will help accelerate its growth.
• With both the on-premise and hosted version, Skype for Business is poised at gaining a substantial market share in enterprise voice and PBX systems, hoping to make it’s way to the top of the list of fastest-growing cloud-based business phone services listed here.
• Being a Microsoft propriety product, Skype for Business’ key selling points will be its ability to integrate Microsoft Exchange and Office. This will be a potential dealmaker for many as e-mail and office productivity apps are an important part of today’s enterprise communication and collaboration environments.
Skype for Business scored substantially higher in voice quality performance, which is traditionally the quality benchmark for voice systems. Legacy PBX systems will hold their historically earned value for organizations, but modern enterprises, sooner or later, will favor cloud features, social capabilities and integrations (Exchange, Office).
Despite what all these numbers and trends suggests, cloud-hosted PBX and unified communication solutions are the new norm. Regardless of how a PBX system is implemented, businesses will value enhanced features, voice quality and usage flexibility over any brand or vendor.
Reuben Yonatan is the founder of GetVoIP. With an extensive background in cloud communication technologies and building industry-leading Internet companies, Yonatan’s writings blend commentary, research and perspective on cloud computing, digital media, business/leadership strategies and enterprise solutions. Follow Yonatan on Twitter @ReubenYonatan.
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