Cost reduction will remain important. The question is whether energy costs are a productive target for cost reduction efforts, given how volatile these costs have turned out to be: Should you invest significant dollars in energy-saving technology if the cost of energy might continue to fall in the short or even medium term? I think energy efficiency still makes sense because even if prices fluctuate, your total energy consumption for IT is likely to be on an unbroken upward trend (leaving out, of course, the impact if you wind up closing facilities due to larger economic factors). Every new IP phone you put in place will increase your demand for Power over Ethernet, and every Power over Ethernet switch you put into a wiring closet will increase your need to cool that closet, potentially with air conditioning systems that will, in turn, suck more power.

I blogged briefly on Johan Krebbers’ keynote address at last week’s VoiceCon Amsterdam; I focused on the issue of information sharing and collaboration at Royal Dutch Shell, but I want to revisit some of the core communications issues. The big headline out of the speech was Krebbers’ assertion that at Shell, voice is no more important than the other peer-to-peer real-time media. In his talk, Krebbers elaborated, saying that within Shell today, if you travel, you’re encouraged to use a softphone to save on international dialing; the expectation is that you’ll become comfortable enough with the softphone that you’ll be willing to use it when you’re in the office as well.

Greetings from beautiful Amsterdam, where our first-ever European VoiceCon event is wrapping up its first day. The big news from today was Microsoft’s announcement of Release 2 of Office Communications Server (OCS), but there was plenty going on all day as we crammed tutorials, keynotes and exhibits into a lovely autumn Tuesday in the Netherlands.

Any enterprise that goes with a cellular service as its primary communications strategy for some or all of its users must come to grips with the reality that wireless costs are exploding in the enterprise. At VoiceCon San Francisco next month, two great consultants, Steve Leaden and Robert Harris, will be running a session on “Managing Your Cellular Spend.”