UC Continues to Spread Through Enterprises

More and more enterprises are beginning to deploy unified communications (UC), according to a report from Webitorials Editorial and Sonus Networks (News - Alert).

According to the piece, “Enterprise Place 2013 Unified Communications Bets: How Many Horses in This Race?” the market for UC in enterprises is still going strong, partially due to an improved understanding of UC and all that it can provide.

The report found several insights to the state of enterprise UC, mostly indicating that it’s been gaining more traction in the market. Seventy-eight percent of those who responded currently have UC solutions either completely or partially deployed, while others who didn’t were considering or planning to deploy their own – although the market is currently dominated by premises-based SBC solutions, with a slight shift toward the hybrid.

On a related note, 65 percent of the UC deployments used by the companies surveyed are premises-based. However, the cloud is quickly gaining ground, and that number is expected to drop down to around 30 percent as hybrid and cloud-based deployments become more popular.

Part of the higher interest in unified communications can be attributed to Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync, which has been seeing a lot of interest as a platform for UC and enterprise voice. As such, Microsoft’s share of the UC market will continue to improve, although Cisco (News - Alert) is equally strong, at the expense of other vendors.

Together, they will rule the market.

“Unified Communications has clearly taken hold in the enterprise and it continues to evolve,” said Steve Taylor, editor-in-chief and publisher for Webtorials. “There are new trends gaining traction, such as the shift from room systems to desktop video, the growing focus on hybrid clouds and changes in the positions of the lead horses or vendors. Since there isn’t a dominant vendor in the market, interoperability – both within the enterprise and for intercompany communications – will be a key factor.”

As much as we talk about UC, it’s hard to believe there are still organizations that do not know the power of unified communications. Still, those that do are steadily growing, and UC is catching on more and more.

It’ll be interesting to see how similar reports sound in the coming years, until a company not deploying UC is nearly unheard of.