Clearly, a significant number of enterprises want to move videoconferencing from the silo where it resides in many enterprises, and bring it fully under the control of the communications system.
Brent Kelly of Wainhouse Research has put together a terrific tutorial on videoconferencing for next week's VoiceCon San Francisco. It's in one of our two-hour "Deep Dive" slots, and deep dive is a great way to describe it. Brent goes at the topic from both market and technology angles, and here's what I thought was the most surprising slide of the 84 in Brent's deck:
This slide shows how strongly the respondents feel that video conferencing should be integrated with the call control. As you can see, it pretty much splits down the middle: About half rate this integration at 6 or above, with 10 as the most important; the other half are at 5 or below.
To be honest, it surprised me a lot to see this level of strategic thinking about videoconferencing. Clearly, a significant number of enterprises want to move videoconferencing from the silo where it resides in many enterprises, and bring it fully under the control of the communications system. I don't think these integrations will be easy or cheap, so it'll be interesting to see if enterprises follow up, especially if IT spending starts to bounce back in the next year or two.
Here's another slide that, in its way, is just as eye-opening. It's about market share:
It gets more interesting if you replace the word, "Tandberg" with "Cisco." (Of course, the reports now are that Cisco is willing to walk away from the Tandberg deal over the shareholders' demands for a higher price, but I don't see it; I agree with the analysts who say this deal gets done.)
Assuming Cisco does get Tandberg, they're instantly #2 in shipments and #1 in revenues, in what's essentially a two-horse race with Polycom. If enterprises really want to bring their videoconferencing under the Unified Communications umbrella, that would seem to bode very well for the Tandberg play. Clearly, a significant number of enterprises want to move videoconferencing from the silo where it resides in many enterprises, and bring it fully under the control of the communications system.
