UK businesses slow in uptake of UC

British firms are lagging behind their counterparts in Europe, America and Australia when it comes to adopting Unified Communications (UC) services, a new report suggests.

UC technology allows users to access voice, fax, text, email and multimedia messaging from a single system, thereby streamlining and automating both internal and external telecommunications services.

The research conducted by VAR Dimension Data reveals that just one third of UK companies have so far adopted the technology, in spite of its obvious cost-saving, customer service and productivity benefits.

Commenting on the findings, Simon Welch, marketing director at IT group Horizon Technology Group, said: "People have experienced a slow service so are not confident in moving into the IP domain in the corporate environment."

"There are lots of resellers in the voice channel that don't have the skill sets to go wider than a telephony solution. They can't be expected to invest in UC."

In spite of the sluggish UK uptake thus far, the report anticipated that VoIP services in general are set to increase rapidly in the short-term with two thirds of UK businesses saying they expect to adopt the technology over the next two years.