The Australian market for unified communications (UC) grew 31% to a value of $484.7 million in 2007, despite customer confusion regarding what UC actually entails.
This is according to Frost & Sullivan’s new report, 'The Australia Unified Communications Report 2008'.
According to the firm, the adoption of UC has been limited so far by a lack of UC standards, leading organisations to grow confused over what UC actually is. This confusion should wane in 2008 as vendors provide more detail about their UC plans.
Enterprises will continue to lead the way in UC adoption, the firm said, with small and medium-sized businesses trailing far behind — at least until carriers package UC apps and services into hosted delivery models.
But according to Frost & Sullivan’s senior research manager, Audrey William, vendors must first learn to sell UC as separate pieces of a puzzle, rather than convince customers to deploy complete UC systems.
“Most organisations upgrading to IP telephony are not expected to immediately embark upon UC,” William said. “They will wait three to five years before considering UC application deployment.
“Market potential is going to depend on the vendors’ ability to market and demonstrate the actual benefits.”
