23 November 2009

Unified communications is migrating to the cloud as vendors begin positioning it as a service rather than a product, according to the latest report, Global unified communications emerges from the cloud, from research analyst In-Stat.

“Several flavours of unified communications are emerging from the cloud,” said In-Stat analyst Dave Lemelin. “There are versions that operate as a hybrid mix of customer-owned equipment with managed/hosted services targeting mid-size businesses, those that act as fully hosted offerings with smaller businesses in mind, and those that are revamped broadband telephony services targeting small office home office users.”

Unified communications has yet to achieve its full potential, but the research highlights the fact that infrastructure providers like Microsoft are now working closely with providers of hosted VoIP services. Two trends in particular are poised to enhance the richness of unified communications: session initiation protocol trunking, now touted as a cost saving mechanism, will ultimately enable the interconnection of unified communications islands; and the wireless industry’s evolution toward higher data rates is extending unified communications to smartphones and other wireless data devices.

According to its research, In-Stat claims that as the world economy rebounds, so will unified communications with total revenues (product and service) growing to US$39.7 billion in 2013.

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