One topic that stood out as a central theme of the recent ITEXPO West conference in Austin, Texas, across the keynotes, conference program, and exhibiting companies in attendance was “The Cloud.”
But, while interest obviously remains high in this area, a lot of people are starting to ask whether this latest “transforming technology” is really going to live up to all the hype currently surrounding it and, if it does, what form it might take. Of the traditional on-premises voice and Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) solution providers that I talk to on a regular basis as part of IntelliCom Analytics’ quarterly market tracking, most have reported very limited head-to-head competition in the field from cloud-based alternatives to date, indicating perhaps as little as a 5% shift of the overall market at this stage. However, market forecasts and customer surveys also consistently indicate a high degree of interest in exploring these cloud-based alternatives which may translate to steeply increasing take-rates over the next few years.
But what form will that actually take? The evolution of Business Communications architectures over the past several years from proprietary voice systems to software suites delivered on a range of hardware has radically changed the comparison between premises-based solutions and hosted voice services.
For the full analysis of the impact of cloud computing on Unified Communication read IntelliCom Analytics’ Market Dashboard Spotlight.
Frank Stinson is a Partner and Senior Analyst with IntelliCom Analytics (News - Alert) and leads the firm's IntelliCom Market Dashboard (IMD). To read more of Frank's articles, please visit his columnist page.
IntelliCom Market Performance Dashboard (IMPD) research programs.Edited by Erik Linask