In the latest report from Wainhouse Research's quarterly WebMetrics research program, 70% of panelists who used Skype in the last six months found the VoIP service acceptable for business calls. This includes a mix of 17% who use it often, 27% who use it for business occasionally, and 27% who find it acceptable for business use but do not use it for business purposes. Only 5% believe it is not acceptable for business or personal use. While only 1/4 of the entire survey group has used Skype in the past six months, the acceptance level among those who have used Skype is believed to be a harbinger of things to come for web conferencing vendors seeking to bolster their Voice over IP (VoIP) offerings.

"While these results may be astounding to some, they are a strong indication that Skype is routinely delivering excellent VoIP service and helping to drive acceptance of VoIP in the business community," said Andy Nilssen, Senior Analyst and Partner, Wainhouse Research. "While we're not likely to see enterprises adopt Skype per se, Skype will lead to VoIP adoption among both enterprise and small-medium business markets sooner rather than later."

In a survey of the WebMetrics Panel conducted online in October, 2005, Wainhouse Research heard from 155 buyers and users of web conferencing on their deployment behavior, brand awareness, and feature preferences. Nilssen added, "This quarter's results indicate that Macromedia (Breeze) and Citrix (GotoMeeting) have made the greatest gains in terms of ad recall, not surprising based on their major PR and product activities during 2005. After WebEx and Microsoft, they are highest rated for ad recall, moving up significantly since Q1 2005."

The report details how leading vendors such as Microsoft, WebEx, Centra, Cisco, IBM Lotus, Citrix, Genesys, Raindance, Oracle, and several others are rated by the panel in areas such as price, performance, and ease-of-use - plus how important each of those areas are to the panel.

The WebMetrics Q3 2005 Report is available by individually and by annual subscription. End users who participate in the survey receive a high-level summary of the findings and qualify for prize drawings. Vendors and service providers seeking more information about the survey series or users wishing to participate in future WebMetrics surveys should visit www.wainhouse.com/webmetrics.