IP  PBXs are a hot topic these days, but Unified Communications ( News - Alert) and IP Contact Center are even hotter according to a report published today by Infonetics Research.
The report, Unified Communications and IP Contact Center Market Outlook, says unified communications applications sales grew worldwide by 21% between 2005 and 2006, to $363 million, and it’s expected that the technology will continue to enjoy “high double digit” growth annually for at least the next three years.
Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research said:
“Unified communications is the buzz du jour in our industry, but there are a lot of different ideas out there for what it actually is. What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that there are two key components that form the cornerstone of UC: unified messaging, which stores all message types, and communicator, a presence-enabled directory that shows contact availability by communication mode. A true UC user will have both, and in fact they are the top two applications being deployed by IP PBX adopters. The unified messaging market is already quite large, but communicator is in its infancy.”
The IP Contact Center market grew by 26% from 2005–2006, with sales of IVR , ACD and CTI ( News - Alert) solutions leading the pack to a total of $482 million. The report positions that market for sustained single-digit growth through at least 2010.
Machowinski again:
“The other topic getting a lot of attention these days is the IP contact center. The contact center market is well understood, and is undergoing a technology transition similar to the PBX (News - Alert) (News - Alert) market, from TDM to IP. That’s causing the IPCC market to grow quite rapidly.”
Other report highlights mentioned in the announcement:
- Unified messaging makes up the bulk of the unified communications market.
- The communicator market is still very young, and growth is expected to be very strong due to its early stage and high demand.
- Avaya leads the worldwide unified messaging market in 2006, but its top competitors, including Nortel (News - Alert), Cisco, and Alcatel-Lucent (in that order), are gaining.
- Alcatel-Lucent is the market share leader for worldwide communicator revenue in 2006; Siemens (News - Alert) and Avaya are neck and neck.
- In the IP contact center market, Avaya leads by far for worldwide revenue, followed by Cisco, Alcatel (News - Alert)-Lucent, and Nortel.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) | X | | A hardware- or software-based computer system that enables incoming callers to interact with voice prompts or verbal commands....more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X | | IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) | X | | TDM divides transmission channels into time-separated channels. TDM was designed to provide each channel with a fixed amount of bandwidth. The tutorial explains more....more |
Private Branch Exchange (PBX) | X | | Originally, telephone features were provided by telephone central office switching systems, often called CENTREX.�PBX systems emerged as customers wanted to have more calling features and control over...more |
Unified Messaging | X | | One of the more interesting applications for multi-media messaging
which has been around for almost a decade but not widely used is
visual voice mail. This software allows the user to see their voi...more |
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