UC Hard to Quantify When You Do Not Know What it Is

In a recent VoiceCon newsletter, Eric Krapf commented on a Gartner study that seems to show a disconnect around expectations for unified communications between those companies that have deployed the technology and those that haven't (but intend to). Companies that have deployed UC value it for the business process change it will bring; those who plan to deploy it say they are looking for hard-dollar cost savings.If I had to guess (and I do, not having participated in the study), I'd say that one reason people who say they're going to deploy UC focus on cost savings is because they're not really talking about UC--they're talking about IPT. The fact is, much confusions remains around what the term "unified communications" really means, but a good majority of the IT people I spoke with at Interop this week define it, quite simply, as Voice over IP. They get that there may be more to it than that eventually, but they bat the term around somewhat arbitrarily in discussions and--I would suggest--survey responses, too.