Forrester interviewed eight vendor and user companies, including AT&T, British Telecommunications (BT), Cisco Systems, Electronic Data Systems (EDS), IBM, Microsoft, Orange Business Services, and Verizon.

The number of unified communications (UC) evaluations and pilots is up more than 20% since last year. However, those pilots have not yet translated into full deployments. Why? Unclear value of ROI, rapidly evolving technologies and standards, immature user interfaces, and a confusing vendor landscape. As a result, many technology decision-makers tell us that they want to rent rather than buy unified communications. This perfect storm of change and uncertainty enables UC vendors, network service providers, and even software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors to win managed UC share by offering industry-specific solutions, enabling rich channel partners, and ensuring that CIOs hear the message of mitigating risk with managed UC deployments.