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World Unified Communications Markets
Frost & Sullivan, May 2011, Pages: 93
This report provides customer premises equipment (CPE) solutions developers with a detailed look at the dynamics of a changing market. The study examines the deployment and marketing trends in the unified communications (UC) space. In this research, expert analysts thoroughly examine integrated solutions comprised of the following: desktop soft clients, telephony, presence and instant messaging, voice and unified messaging, video calling, multimedia conferencing and collaboration.
Market Overview
World UC Markets Poised for Growth Spurt, as Foundational Application Elements become Less Expensive and Easy to Deploy
High Uptake of IP Telephony, New Deployment Models, and Managed Services Energizes Market Prospects
The world UC market will continue to grow in the near- and mid- term as vendors leverage their installed enterprise telephony and business email accounts to deliver greater value to existing customer technology investments. New advancements in server processing power, software virtualization, and networking capabilities are driving down cost and expanding implementation flexibility for UC solutions. The result is an increasing audience of addressable customers which will sustain UC market growth in the coming years. “Value propositions are changing as enterprise communications solutions evolve from hardware-based to software-centric designs,” notes the analyst of this research service. “Increased emphasis on the business value of UC and its ability to address specific issues is resonating with customers that require clear ROI from their technology investments.”
The UC market is highly correlated with trends in IP telephony equipment shipments, which suffered substantial declines in 2008 and 2009 due to the economic downturn but began to recover in 2010. Traction for UC solution deployments has followed a similar ebb and flow. In 2010 global shipments of advanced UC soft clients had declined by approximately 12 percent year-over-year from 2009. This decline is due in part to the end of aggressive promotional efforts by leading Internet protocol (IP) telephony vendors and is somewhat offset by growth from other competitors. The economy began to stabilize in 2010 and is expected to resume a more normal growth pattern in 2011 and beyond. In 2011, pent-up demand will be unleashed to spur technology spending such as replacing time division multiplexing (TDM) communications infrastructure with IP. This refresh will be aided by technologies such as UC.
Over the next 5 to 6 years, vendors are likely to promote UC clients over basic softphones and bundle telephony licenses with other applications, seeding the market for future application integration opportunities. Application bundles offered at compelling price discounts will further facilitate the adoption of advanced applications such as mobility, multimedia conferencing, and collaboration. UC developers are moving toward more flexible consumption models that enable customers to implement UC solutions with greater speed and with reduced risk. Increasing availability of virtualization technologies, hosted, cloud, and managed services in support of UC solutions will help to drive the overall market growth.
Many businesses continue to question the value of certain basic UC applications, including instant messaging (IM) and videoconferencing. These companies are least likely to realize the value of a complete UC deployment, whether it is sold as a bundled suite or a best-of-breed solution. Historically, UC has been marketed as an end-to-end solution, comprised of point products and later integrated together. In reality, few users actually require access to the full range of capabilities in the UC stack. This has given rise to the perception that UC benefits a small percentage of users. UC solutions are no longer marketed with broad horizontal value propositions. Instead, developers are presenting solutions designed for specific user roles and tasks, lines of business, and vertical industries.
Licensing schemes now also allow businesses to implement UC more cost effectively and more selectively with the appropriate features for specific users. “The currently pervading, more granular approach to UC software licensing encourages customers to migrate to UC at their own pace and to address needs according to their individual priorities,” says the analyst. “Thus, the trends in the UC domain indicate a focus on value over volume.”
Market Sectors
Expert analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research:
- Desktop soft clients
- Telephony
- Presence and instant messaging
- Voice and unified messaging
- Video calling
- Multimedia conferencing and collaboration
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