Opportunities in Real Time Communications Growing in Asia-Pacific Market

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Mobile communications continue to be in high demand as society has taken on a new approach to living life on the move. Whether the focus is for personal or business, users no longer want to be tethered to one place and demand that they access communications technologies and real time communications from any location and on any device.

In the Asia-Pacific market, the adoption of comprehensive mobile collaboration services is on the rise due to the growing mobile and remote workforce. Users are ready with smartphone and tablet in hand, pushing businesses to leverage mobility to enhance workforce productivity. As a result, the APAC enterprise mobile collaboration application market will experience immense growth over the next three years, according to Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert).

The once must-haves of email, calendar, contact and IM/presence are now standard features, with demand shifting to focus on the inclusion of advanced cloud-based enterprise mobile collaboration services such as voice and mobile conferencing, which is expected to dominate the market in the very near future. To make the most of this opportunity, vendors in the unified communications space will have to strengthen their offerings.

In an effort to measure this activity among vendors and identify their strengths and weaknesses, Frost and Sullivan developed the Front Industry Quotient. This assessment tool accurately operationalizes and captures the merits and challenges faced by these vendors in their respective locations and segments. With this tool, key decision makers can glean an objective perspective of the industry when examining by location.

Among those vendors that are making a statement in this space, the Front Industry Quotient has recognized Cisco, ShoreTel, Avaya (News - Alert), NEC, Aastra, and Alcatel-Lucent for their performance in the market. Each has demonstrated technological capabilities and effective go-to-market strategies. These vendors are pegged as those to watch in the near future as their competitive standings are expected to only improve.

The two giants in the industry, however, driving real time communications opportunities throughout the global landscape are IBM (News - Alert) and Microsoft. Together, the two claim 85 percent of the revenue generated in the enterprise mobile collaboration application segment in Asia-Pacific. Their dominance may be challenged by any one of the vendors listed above focused on capturing opportunities in real time communications as demand continues to intensify.

Shuishan Lu, Industry Analyst, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, sees a favorable market outlook. "The increased usage of smart devices and rapid development of wireless networks in the region has been a boon for enterprise mobile collaboration in the Asia-Pacific region,” Lu says. “Enterprises are also leveraging UC (Unified Communications (News - Alert)) applications to gain competitive advantage in the market, improve employee productivity and facilitate an efficient and conducive working environment."

So promising is the area of real time communications and the ability to use collaboration to drive key initiatives that Frost and Sullivan predicts the number of active mobile application users will reach 7.4 million by 2018, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.4 percent. Those vendors able to prove their worth in supporting real time communications will benefit from this growth.  

(source: http://www.realtimecommunicationsworld.com/topics/realtimecommunicationsworld/articles/380005-opportunities-real-time-communications-growing-asia-pacific-market.htm)