Rich Costello is a senior research analyst within IDC's Enterprise Communications Infrastructure service, and is a leading member of the Unified Communications (UC) research team. He assesses the development of UC products and solutions among vendors in the market and evaluates the adoption of UC technology by enterprise customers contemplating the migration of their existing solutions. Mr. Costello develops IDC's viewpoints on the evolution of VoIP networking infrastructure and next-generation voice and video technologies, and advises enterprise clients on the impact of IP telephony, unified messaging, collaboration, telepresence and other conferencing solutions on their networks, end users, and service and support personnel.

Mr. Costello has been covering enterprise voice and video communications since 1992, providing insight into general best business practices for selecting and deploying VoIP and UC solutions. His research and quotes have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The London Financial Times, and other publications in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Prior to joining IDC in 2010, Mr. Costello held various analyst positions at Gartner, Inc.

Mr. Costello has a B.S. in Business Management from Rutgers University, a diploma in Electronics from Lincoln Technical Institute, and holds a CE to teach Business Education in the State of New Jersey at the secondary school level.