Session Border Controller Featured Article

January 16, 2013


How Unified Communications Will Grow in 2013


By Carlos Olivera
TMCnet Content Producer

Unified Communications (News - Alert) has been slow to take off due to some businesses being a bit wary because of the potential high costs and risks to security. With most businesses throughout the world relying heavily on video-conferencing, instant messaging, and presence-based router, 2013 will usher in even more unified communications.


In a preliminary report by Michael Finneran, he outlines the growth by percentages in UC from the previous year. The report has yet to be released so details were limited, but Finneran notes the fact that in his Information Week survey, 36 percent of the respondents reported they have already deployed unified communications with another 31 percent intending to deploy within the next 24 months.

In a similar survey for Webtorials, Finneran once again saw an increase in use with 21 percent of the respondents already engaged in a full deployment, with 53 percent acknowledging a partial deployment and another 16 percent reporting that deployment was part of their future plans.

Although the surveys were different, Finneran reiterated the trend and growth it shows in the UC market.

“Given the different survey populations, you can't do a real apples-to-apples comparison, but things seem to be looking up for UC,” said Finneran.

In a similar survey, TMCnet Web Editor Jamie Epstein pointed out similar findings from a study done by Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert). In the report, Frost & Sullivan pointed out the fact that as the growth continues, most business are going to a multi-vendor approach with 50 percent of the respondents reporting using multiple vendors.

The multi-vendor approach seems to be causing some integration obstacles, and according to Epstein, Frost & Sullivan “is predicting that multi-vendor users in the UCC market will decrease to 24 percent by 2015.”

In Finneran’s report, he also saw a trend in which specific vendors were being used. Cisco (64 percent), Avaya (News - Alert) (41 percent), and Microsoft (28 percent) were the top three vendors reported. But when asked about future plans, Cisco’s percentage rose to 67 with Microsoft (News - Alert) at 38 percent jumping Avaya ,who dropped down to 27 percent.

“What we took away from this is that UC is increasingly becoming a two-horse race between Microsoft and Cisco (News - Alert), with users showing a decided preference for one or the other for different UC functions.”

Want to learn more about SIP Trunking and how to integrate it into your current UC strategy? Don’t miss the SIP Trunking- UC Seminarscollocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.




Edited by Rich Steeves

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