Unified Communications Gaining Momentum and Penetrating into the Mid-Market in Australia

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Sydney, Australia, 18 February. IDC Australia has released two reports related to unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), looking at the market from both supply side and demand side.

The first report looks at the Australian UC&C market in terms of the total vendor revenue for IP telephony, videoconferencing, enterprise collaboration and contact centre. This report is based on IDC's semi-annual UC&C tracker which captures the market share of various vendors including Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, IBM, Lifesize, Microsoft, Polycom and Siemens.

The UC&C market grew 8.5% in 1H 2012 on a year-over-year basis with videoconferencing showing the fastest growth whilst IP telephony recording a slight decline. Whilst there was a strong demand for videoconferencing, 65% of the market was in the hands of Cisco and Polycom – a significant proportion from larger enterprises deploying videoconferencing facilities in meeting rooms. IP telephony on the other is highly mature and competitive with vendors such as Cisco and Avaya winning large enterprise customers and vendors such as Panasonic and LG targeting aggressively at the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Whilst companies are careful with their spending, UC&C remains an area they are willing to invest to drive productivity, lower operating costs and create business advantages. As the workforce becomes more mobile and distributed, there will be greater demand for UC&C solutions. IDC expects the overall UC&C market to grow from A$661.7 million in 2012 to A$943.7 million in 2017.

"We see growing interest in the implementation of mobility, social, and videoconferencing solutions, but it remains challenging to integrate various functionalities into a single UC&C platform," says Siow-Meng Soh, research manager, IDC Australia. "We also expect more UCaaS and VCaaS offerings to appear in the market that will drive adoption, as companies continue to move to opex-based models."

The second report provides an analysis of the results of IDC's UC&C research that surveyed 100 Australian enterprises about their views, plans and vendor selection around UC&C. The results look broadly at the mid-market businesses with 96% of the respondents reported having fewer than 500 employees. The survey results show that there is a growing interest in UC&C. 80% of the enterprises report to be deploying UC&C compared with 40% in the previous year.

Whilst there is a high level of interest for UC&C solutions, some companies have chosen software-based solutions (e.g, Microsoft Lync) and cloud-based solutions (e.g., CSC's UCaaS), instead of going with an IP telephony vendor. The survey results also show that videoconferencing is still in the start-up phase for the mid-market. Upfront capex investments, ongoing costs and interoperability remain key concerns for customers.

"UC&C is now a mature technology and it is moving down to the mid-market. The SME segment is now the engine of growth for the market and customers in this segment will place greater emphasis on solutions that offer lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and complexity – cloud-based offerings fit well with their requirements."

INFORMATION FOR THE READER

On IDC's website, www.idc.com this media release relates to documents: #AU3054202V, Australia Unified Communications and Collaboration 2012-2017 Forecast and Analysis; and #AU3054203V, Unified Communications is Primed for Cloud: Australian Results of IDC's Annual Asia/Pacific Survey.

CONTACT DETAILS

For further information, please contact

Siow-Meng Soh

Research Manager

Tel: +61 2 9925 2263

E-mail: smsoh@idc.com

Alison Te Hira

Marketing Manager, IDC

Tel: +61 2 9925 2258

E-mail: atehira@idc.com

About IDC

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 45 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com or www.idc.com.au.

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