Enterprise Communications Featured Article

The computing capabilities of smartphones, combined with wireless broadband, means many of the applications and services available for desktops can be accessed on these devices. This is especially true for enterprise communications solutions that integrate their voice, video and text capabilities to deliver mobile unified communications. New research by MarketsandMarkets reveals that the mobile unified communication and collaboration (UC&C) market is set to grow at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.5 percent from 2014 to 2019, increasing from $5.15 billion to $17.38 billion during the forecast period.

The market is being driven by a mobile workforce that is integrating smartphones and tablets as part of the operational procedures of organizations. As many businesses around the world start identify themselves as mobile first with their digital presence, integrating UC&C functions is a natural extension of their development. Additionally, the demand for bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives is also driving the growth of the market.

Mobile technology is giving businesses many opportunities for innovation while at the same time providing their workforce the flexibility to work from virtually anywhere, which translates to improved productivity and higher employee satisfaction. Mobile UC&C solutions provide communication and collaboration tools, which include voice solutions; audio, web and video conferencing; and instant messaging, video chats, voicemails, and email accessible from anywhere.

Researchers at MarketsandMarkets are also predicting the market value of unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) will experience growth, rising from $2.52 billion in 2013 to $7.62 billion by 2018, with the global UCaaS telephony market increasing from $0.87 billion in 2013 to $2.48 billion by 2018.

The report, titled “Mobile Unified Communications (News - Alert) and Collaboration Market by Solutions (Conferencing, Unified Messaging, Voice, Collaboration), & by Deployment Type (Cloud & On-Premise) - Global Forecast to 2019,” looks at the entire market with solutions, services, deployment types, user types and industrial verticals along with an in-depth analysis and forecast of market sizes. This includes identifying the factors that will drive the market, as well as some of the challenges and opportunities impacting the future adoption trends of mobile UC&C solutions.

The North American region will be the largest market for mobile UC&C, with Asia-Pacific and the European region expected to experience increased market growth over the next few years. The major vendors of the global market highlighted in the report are Alcatel Lucent (News - Alert), Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Genband, and IBM Corp.

“The high extent of convenience provided by organizations to boost employee productivity and enable augmentation of business productivity has facilitated the enterprises and Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) to expansively consider mobile UC&C solutions within their organizations,” according to MarketsandMarkets.