Easier to sell, he says, is the VoIP- related drop in long-distance charges for calls between HOB offices in Toronto and Vancouver. Those costs plummeted from $2,000 a month to $250 upon the adoption of BCM.

VoIP investments with limited UM rollouts are typical, according to Robert Mahowald, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC. For instance, if a business installs a voice-mail replacement system to accommodate 1,000 employees, only a portion of those employees are likely to become UM users. "Nine hundred of them will get vanilla voice mail, and 100 will get unified messaging, which is typically limited to high earners and mobile executives," he says. Such was the case at Stahls' Inc., a St. Clair Shores, Mich.-based manufacturer of imprint graphics used by garment manufacturers to decorate apparel with sports logos and other designs.

"We are licensed for about one-third of our workforce. This is a proper mix for us between traveling, remote and power users who would utilize the features," says Michael Terenzi, manager of IT/telecommunications operations.

Stahls' deployed its UM capabilities through the adoption of a new HiPath 4000 switch and Xpressions 4.0 unified messaging system from Siemens Communications Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla.

As was the case with HOB, SIP didn't play a huge role in Stahls' UM applications. "SIP really wasn't a factor in our decision," says Terenzi. "But I do think SIP will make the market competitive."