Infonetics Research, a communications market research firm, has reported that the IP contact center (IPCC) market will finish 2008 up 37 percent over 2007. In addition, many vendors are reporting robust sales, particularly in Asia Pacific.

In the firm’s recent report, Unified Communications (News - Alert) and IP Contact Center Market Share and Forecasts, research findings reveal sales of unified communications (UC) products will end mixed in 2008. Unified messaging platform sales were up and communicator software sales proved to be flat.

The deterioration in the economic activity throughout the world is expected to impact enterprise spending on telephony products. Forecasts show this spending as slowing in 2009, which will also pull down the overall UC and IPCC markets.

Despite the projected slow down in the global market, the IPCC and communicator segments are expected to weather the economic downturn better than others.

"The communicator market continues to be fluid, with growth not yet following established patterns and market share positions shifting one period to the next as PBX (News - Alert) vendors battle each other and Microsoft,” said Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for enterprise voice and data, in a Monday statement.

“It's an exciting market to watch, and one that should thrive in 2009, even as the overall enterprise telephony market declines due to the economic environment. Similarly, the IPCC market will slow down in 2009, but should do relatively well as customers find IP contact centers, self service, and automation cost effective ways to deliver on customer service."

The report also noted that in 1H08, more than one million IPCC seats were sold worldwide; Avaya continues to lead the IPCC market by far in 1H08, but lost share to Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert); and Nortel emerged the leader in unified messaging and license market share in 1H08, while Avaya remains the leader in revenue market share.

This latest report from Infonetics tracks 3Com, Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, CosmoCom, IBM, Interactive Intelligence, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, Nortel, Siemens (News - Alert), ShoreTel, Vertical, and others.

To fully gauge the global market, the report also covers add-on IP PBX applications, including unified communications, and IP contact centers, including ACD, IVR and CTI (News - Alert). It provides worldwide market share and worldwide and regional market size and forecasts.

Companies operating in nearly every industry throughout the world are feeling the impact of the global economic slowdown. While this will play a role in spending and profitability in 2009, not all industries will suffer. The IPCC industry returned a strong 2008 and while spending will slow in 2009, the industry will still be important to the enterprise and therefore, sustainable.