Hosted, Cloud-based UC Makes Head Way in Australia

By Stefania Viscusi
Assignment Desk Editor

The UC market has seen exponential growth as it allows users to efficiently and effectively communicate and conduct business. Together with the ability to collaborate better, business also favor UC for its cost savings.

Now with cloud and hosted technologies, these benefits are advanced further, and businesses across the globe are buying in.

A look at Australia’s on-premises UC market in 2013 by Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) found that the market lost revenues as more businesses moved to the cloud and mainstream adoption was reached.

Not only are cost savings a key reason behind businesses making the switch, but the limited flexibility of legacy, on premises offerings leaves companies behind the competition and just no longer makes sense for many.

"Growth rates in the UC market are expected to be flat in 2014 and will continue to be low. Vendors will find it difficult to convert opportunities for on-premise solutions as hosted and cloud-based alternatives gather momentum. This will also have the effect of tightening the profit margins for vendors and channel partners, further contributing to the low growth rates in the market," said Anand Balasubramanian, Industry Analyst, ICT Practice, Australia & New Zealand, Frost & Sullivan.

As part of its Australian Unified Communications (News - Alert) Market 2014 research, Frost & Sullivan forecasts growth rates for the overall UC market to grow at a CAGR of 1.6 percent from 2013 to 2020 with hosted and cloud offerings bringing in close to the same revenue as on-premises offerings.

The cloud, while full of benefits, is still not an option all companies are looking at – since some have already put up large capital to develop their in-house offerings and others are fall into the government and financial industries, these businesses are still keeping their solutions on premises.

For the future, emerging technologies like WebRTC and mobile UC offerings, which are app-based, will gain strength in the market and further drive changes in how UC solutions are adopted.

Next week, in San Jose Calif., at WebRTC Conference & Expo V, industry thought leaders and those interested in the communications space will gather to hear all about the ways WebRTC can improve internal and customer facing communications and even drive revenue opportunities in the enterprise.

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