Web Based Collaboration Services Market Set To Grow

Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan has said that the popularity of Web-based collaboration services such as instant messaging (IM), web conferencing and others is going to grow significantly in the coming years and more and more businesses are going to adopt these value-added online services as enablers of efficient communication.

According to Frost, these services are going to become increasingly popular not just for their ease of use but also because these do not require huge investments and building a complex infrastructure.

Statistics reveal that the global Web-based Collaboration Services Market generated revenues worth $682.7 million in 2005. Frost estimates suggest that this could reach to $2,644.5 million by the end of this decade.

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According to Dominic Dodd, senior industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan, “Web-based collaboration services integrate tried-and-tested forms of collaboration such as Web conferencing and instant messaging with newer technologies such as desktops, workspaces, wikis and podcasts. They form a core component of the growing ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) market.”

Currently, Web conferencing contributes a significant portion of the revenues. However, this is likely to change over the next few years as synchronous or real-time and asynchronous collaboration service technology increasingly merge due to the growing need for tools such as shared virtual workspaces and online collaborative authoring of documents.

Web-based collaboration services are receiving a strong boost with the resurgence of new business start-ups, increasing globalization and growing deployment of broadband communications said a recent study by the firm.

The study also said that there are plenty of opportunities for service providers in a broad spectrum of companies such as small office-home office (SoHo), small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), large global corporations as well as remote and teleworkers.

The SMB segment represents a particularly attractive target group since it does realize the need to harness the power of collaboration but can’t afford to invest hefty sums to avail a complex infrastructure that supports its communication needs.

“Web-based collaboration service providers are well-placed to use Web 2.0 technologies such as mash-ups to rapidly develop and deploy new services to meet changing markets needs. This agility, coupled with the use of viral marketing to get across its message, will enable the growing band of companies in this space to compete effectively,” concluded Dodd.