Unified communications (UC) is in general a fairly substantial growth area for technology and communications, but a recent study released from Infonetics Research (News - Alert) shows that there are some parts of this market experiencing bigger growth than others. The two parts in particular that are showing the biggest growth in the field? Collaboration and video conferencing.
The Infonetics Research report in question—entitled “UC Cloud and On-Premises Strategies and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey”--took a closer look at different enterprises' plans for the UC field (as expressed by 156 UC purchase decision makers at medium and large businesses) as well as how said enterprises felt about different vendors in the UC market. Video conferencing was one of the biggest parts of the survey, with 88 percent of respondents planning to bring video conferencing capability to a UC architecture that's already in place. Seventy-four percent of respondents, meanwhile, noted that mobile device integration was, overall, a “very important” capability for UC systems.
When it comes to most common UC applications, email was first on the list, followed up by instant messaging, voice systems, conferencing and collaboration systems. When it comes to bringing in new UC systems, enterprises commonly look in three companies' directions: Cisco, IBM (News - Alert), and Microsoft, though not necessarily in that order. Regardless of who companies look to, though, most companies are looking for the same things in hosted providers: security for the systems installed, and a high level of support in the service as well as a quality of service (QoS) guarantee.
But perhaps the widest overall point to take away from the study, as explained by Infonetics Research principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS Diane Myers, is that when it comes to UC, the price of getting in is becoming much less than the price of staying out. Myers elaborates, saying, “Enterprises have a number of choices, from traditional premises-based solutions to a variety of cloud capabilities. This makes for a fragmented market for businesses to wade through, but it also provides options to best fit a wide swath of requirements.”
The concept, essentially, becomes clear. Cost is much less of an issue for these larger firms than it was, mostly because the technology and market are, as a whole, maturing. There are new developments coming along, of course, but note that many of the concerns businesses have aren't associated with cost. Rather, most businesses are concerned with overall operation, matters of security and overall service effectiveness, at least on this survey. This is a good sign for the UC market as a whole; if cost is no longer seen as a barrier to implementation, companies can instead focus on quality of service and security, the points that most larger companies seem to be looking for at this point.
There's a lot of room to make headway in the UC market, and those companies that can offer excellent experiences in collaboration and videoconferencing—both very important tools given the overall changes in the market that call on remote workforces and look to save money on business travel with videoconferencing—should have a real advantage in the market overall. While this may not be what businesses are looking for five years from now, those businesses prepared to adjust offerings to focus on these key points should come out ahead in the short term.
Edited by Cassandra Tucker