Growth in the unified communications and IP contact centre markets is outpacing the growth rate of the “red-hot” IP PBX market, research has revealed.
Infonetics Research said in a new report that worldwide sales of unified communications applications increased 21% between 2005 and 2006 to $363 million.
The sector is expected to enjoy “grow in the high double digits” each year from now at least until 2010.
“Unified communications is the ‘buzz du jour’ in our industry, but there are a lot of different ideas out there for what it actually is,” said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research.
“What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that there are two key components that form the cornerstone: unified messaging, which stores all message types; and communicator, a presence-enabled directory that shows contact availability by communication mode.
“A true unified communications user will have both, and in fact they are the top two applications being deployed by IP PBX adopters. The unified messaging market is already quite large, but communicator is in its infancy.”
Machowinski added that worldwide sales of IP contact centre applications, including automatic call distribution, interactive voice response and computer telephony integration, totalled $482 million in 2006, a 26% increase over 2005.
The IP contact centre market is forecast to grow in the single digits to low double digits at least until 2010.
“The contact centre market is well understood, and is undergoing a technology transition similar to the PBX market from time division multiplexing to IP. This is causing the IP contact centre market to grow quite rapidly,” said Machowinski.
Unified messaging makes up the bulk of the unified communications market, according to the research.
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