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Technology Stocks : FRANKLIN TELECOM (FCM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daine Newman who wrote (1699)	9/2/1999 1:12:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2891

Intranets & IP Telephony Are King Says IDC FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1999 SEP 1 (Newsbytes) -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. Two reports out today from International Data Corporation (IDC) say that intranets and IP telephony have become of paramount importance in modern day businesses in the US. The first report, "US Intranet Usage and User Intentions," says that, from a standing start, intranets have now become the backbone of many organization's IT infrastructures in North America. Mike Comisker, an analyst with the research firm's Intranet Strategies program, said that the intranet has now started a critical change in its evolution. User expectations, he said, have risen to a level that eclipses the notion of the intranet as a secondary information resource. As a result, he said, users will expect more from their intranets, especially as new technology allows better information management and business process integration. The IDC survey says that the top four intranet uses remained the same as last year: information sharing, information publishing, e-mail, and document management. However, the survey also showed applications such as data conferencing that played less significant roles on intranets in the past play a more significant role this year and are being used more often. IDC's research found that most organizations now rely on internal expertise when designing or implementing an intranet. In addition, more than half the organizations surveyed had a corporate standard for Web browsers. The survey also revealed the corporate mindset on information is changing. Companies are moving from a top-down hierarchical philosophy to a more open, horizontal, collaborating one. IDC's second report, "IP Telephony Services: Market Review and Forecast, 1998 to 2004," found that, in parallel with intranet take-up on the domestic market, IP telephony take-up internationally is soaring. Usage of IP telephony services, the report says, will surge from 310 million minutes of use in 1998 to 2.7 billion by the end of 1999. And, by 3004, the report predicts that usage will have rocketed to 135 billion minutes. As you'd expect with this almost exponential growth, revenues for IP telephony services worldwide will also skyrocket from $480 million in 1999 to $19 billion by 2004, IDC says. Mark Winther, group vice president for IDC's Worldwide Telecommunications research operation, said that the consumer end of the market - where pricing rules - has been driving the growth of the IP telephony industry. Winther said that expatriate communities and international travelers are using IP telephony services to originate and terminate calls in the United States, Asia/Pacific, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. While the consumer market has been quick to embrace IP telephony, IDC's research suggests that the business side of the market has been slow to adopt IP telephony because of quality and usability issues. Business users, Winther said, are unlikely to use IP telephony when it requires callers to dial 24 or more digits. User access, he said, has to be transparent and quality of service has to improve. The report says that, because of these issues, vendors are addressing the concerns. Larger IP telephony service providers are now enhancing call quality and integrating their services with corporate virtual private networks. As a result, IDC predicts widespread use of IP telephony in the business market by 2001. By 2004, IDC forecasts the size of the business market will surpass the consumer market. IDC's Web site is at idc.com . Reported by Newsbytes.com, newsbytes.com .