Interwise, provider of IP Conferencing and Collaboration, announced today their predictions for the enterprise conferencing market for the upcoming year.

 

As more executives begin to see the benefit of company-wide conferencing in enhancing business results as well as the important need to maintain communications for all employees, there will be a shift toward executive demand for the tools over just department demands, Interwise foresees.

 

Interwise also envisions in 2007, Voice and Web conferencing will become more of an everyday need for communication among employees-- driving company-wide distribution rates throughout the organization, just as email. This will also be fueled by the rise in fixed/price unlimited usage models and improved technologies to support real-time collaboration tools in the workplace.

 

A recent report by research firm Frost and Sullivan found that by 2010, the web-based collaboration services market will reach revenues of $2,644.5 million, up from $682.7 million in 2005 and with Web conferencing being a key driver of these revenues.

 

Another prediction points to a diminishing concern in the cost of services as value in their features and IT requirements for solutions, will take focus. Factors such as flexibility, integration and security will outweigh price when making a choice for a company-wide deployment.

 

Interwise noted in a recent news release, "Enterprise IT staffs will want to familiarize themselves with alternatives to SAAS/ hosted conferencing offerings and how most of them differ in their ability to meet IT requirements."

 

As more and more offices turn to VoIP for its benefits, a demand for VoIP-based conferencing will also occur. Taking away the need for pay-per-minute services and instead moving enterprises in the direction of VoIP-based solutions offered at a fixed price and with unlimited usage. The company notes, "this signals the death knell for pay-per-minute offerings, particularly as VoIP based conferencing is able to serve as a proof point of ROI from IP networks."

 

Interwise also predicted a move in deployment options away from a solely hosted or a solely in-house solution. Instead, a hybrid solution that answers to the needs of a workforce that is expanding and increasingly becoming mobile will better fit conferencing buyer needs for organizations moving forward.  

 

“We put our efforts into delivering an application that is designed to perform efficiently on corporate bandwidth, but can switch over to hosted capacity wherever and whenever it is needed,” Neil Lieberman, vice president for Interwise recently told TMCnet.

 

“Users don’t have to do a thing—the capacity is just there for them, at a fixed price. When they get Web meetings married with regular telephone access, the viral appeal of the technology takes off. As for the IT folks, knowing they won’t see a cost punishment because the application is successful and that their network won’t require a huge bandwidth increase, they are much happier and can get truly behind the idea of pushing for higher levels of communications and collaboration.”

 

And finally, the environmental impacts of businesses, which cannot be ignored in a world where poor environmental responsibilities threaten our future, will enter into CSR agendas with great focus in the upcoming year.  

 

Because traveling constitutes a large part of carbon dioxide emission problems, the need for businesses to refine their corporate travel policies will become necessary.

 

According to a survey taken by Interwise earlier this year, 30.2 percent of respondents said they traveled via road, rail and air for more than four meetings out of the office each month and 25 percent attended more than two meetings. However, of those questioned, only 22.7 percent said the meetings had to be held face to face.

 

Interwise's prediction is the increased focus on environmental responsibility will further strengthen support for conferencing, as it significantly reduces the need to travel and  therefore the emissions that threaten our environment.