Wainhouse Research has released its study on Unified Communications titled "Unified Communications (News - Alert) as a Service: Hosted UC Market Strategies, Solution Offerings, and 6-Year Forecast." Wainhouse Research provides insight on products and services for collaboration and conferencing applications within Unified Communications. The client list includes technology suppliers and providers along with enterprise users of voice, video, streaming and web collaboration solutions.

 

The study describes the hosted unified communications market along with the forces that drive companies to host a UC solution as against locating it on-premises. Wainhouse (News - Alert) Research has compared the TCO of a hosted UC solution to a premises-based UC solution over a three-year operating period in the study.

 

Hosted unified communications is an emerging business with huge potential. Even though the study predicts the current market to be less than $200 million, robust growth is expected. The vendors with established unified communications as a service (UCaaS) offerings are reporting double-digit growth.

 

They also exhibit significant interest in the verticals they target. According to the study, this sector is predicted to grow over the next five years to become a billion dollar business by the end of 2011. By the end of the forecast period, this sector is projected to become a $5 billion business.

 

The report from Wainhouse Research reviews 16 hosted unified communications solutions. This includes hosted UC solutions from hosted messaging providers, hosted VoIP vendors, carriers and from the major premises-based UC providers who have recently launched hosted UC services offerings. Microsoft, IBM and Cisco (News - Alert) belong to this group of providers.

 

The report reviews hybrid offerings that include hosted PBXs from Cisco and Siemens (News - Alert) along with premises-based Microsoft’s’ Office communication Server deployments. The value proposition behind a vendor’s solution is described for each such offering. Along with explaining how the solutions work, the report also outlines the key capabilities, the route to market and pricing of each solution. The report contains Wainhouse’s analysis on each solution as well.

 

The report provides end user organizations with a tool for helping them to shape a coherent unified communications strategy that might include both hosted and premises-based UC elements. Cloud computing environments related to the emerging hosted UC solutions are also described in the report.