Cisco Poised To Reap Unified Communications Windfall
7/16/2007 -- Don't look now, but Cisco Systems Inc.'s push into unified communications (UC) could soon bear fruit. That's one upshot of a new study from market watcher Infonetics Research, which says that growth in the UC and IP contact center (IPCC) markets outpaces even that of the IP PBX market.
According to Infonetics, worldwide sales of UC applications surged by 21 percent between 2005 and 2006, cresting to $363 million. What's more, Infonetics said, UC sales should continue to grow at double-digit rates through 2010. Add it all up, analysts say, and you've go a bona fide buzz. "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," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research, in a statement. "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."
Elsewhere, Infonetics reported, worldwide sales of IPCC applications amounted to $482 million last year. That was good for a 26 percent increase over 2005's total. The IPCC market won't grow at quite as robust a clip as its UC counterpart: Infonetics projected single-digit to low double-digit growth through 2010. "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 market, from TDM to IP. That's causing the IPCC market to grow quite rapidly," Machowinski said.
Accoding to Infonetics, Avaya leads the worldwide unified messaging market, although its competitors -- Nortel, Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent -- continue to gain. In the IPCC market, Avaya enjoys a much bigger leader over No. 2 Cisco, No. 3 Alcatel-Lucent and No. 4 Nortel. --Stephen Swoyer
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