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After months and months of research, I've finally completed and released my new UC market study, creatively called "Unified Communications 2007-2012" - chock full of market numbers and forecasts, vendor profiles, information on what UC is all about, how it's being rolled out and adopted, what some of the challenges are, etc. At 150 pages, it covers a lot of territory.So what were the key findings? The market is growing (duh) and we've moved from end-user companies dabbling in trying out "presence" to actually integrating UC with their business processes and applications. However, while there are significant numbers of companies implementing IM and presence servers, the majority of those implementations are being used only for providing enterprise-grade (and secure) IM; they are not being integrated with the enterprises' telephony or voice system, or integrated with other elements of a UC solution, or with a single unified user interface, so they can't be consider true "unified communications." In fact, in 2007, only about 5% of the enterprise IM/presence seats or licenses shipped were used as part of a UC solution, as opposed to being used on a standalone basis simply for enterprise IM. The portion of these seats being used as part of a UC solution will grow to almost 25% by 2012. But the point is, not all enterprise IM/presence systems are being used as part of a UC solution. The same is true for unified messaging, IP PBXs, conferencing products, and so on - the bulk of these systems are currently being purchased and implemented for use on a stand-alone basis, and not as part of an overall unified communications solution.

When measuring the UC market, it's critical to identify the portion of the total gross or "UC-capable" market (which consists of the market for IP PBXs, unified messaging, IM/presence, conferencing/collaboration, etc.) that is being used as part of a UC solution. This provides the Net or "True" UC market. In 2007, less than 5% of the total gross UC revenues can be attributed to the "true" UC market. This means that of all the IP PBXs, UM systems, and other elements of a UC solution being sold, just a small fraction is being used for UC. The study found that the True UC market is growing rapidly, and is expected to represent about 15% of the total gross or UC-capable market by 2012.

In order to come up with UC market estimates and forecasts, I sliced and diced the market in several different ways, since there's no one easy way to measure the market. The good news is, each of these methods shows significant market growth. There are several reasons why the market is growing at a substantial rate. Perhaps the least exciting but most important factor is the fact that UC is a relatively new market, so growth rates will be relatively high as we're starting off with a low installed base. UC elements such as enterprise IM/presence haven't been around very long and do not have very large installed bases, so the growth will be higher than that of more mature markets.

We're starting to see UC solutions used in small implementations within large enterprises, with specific business units focusing on using UC for specific business processes. Rather than purchasing and implementing a UC solution across the enterprise (which is extremely difficult and unlikely to happen), companies are focusing on the workers and business processes that can best benefit from UC.

There are many more findings from this study, but you'll have to purchase the report to find out more. Or go to www.ucstrategies.com to read the Executive Summary. If you have any questions about this new market study, contact me at bpleasant@commfusion.com.

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