Improved Interoperability To Sustain Growth Of Videoconferencing Infra Mkt

The global videoconferencing infrastructure market surged to a peak in 2010, when it experienced record growth. Additionally in 2011 videoconferencing infrastructure technology developments broke new barriers to gain more robust capabilities and flexible deployment options.

The market is benefitting considerably from the convergence of multiple sustainable drivers such as cost savings from travel avoidance, higher productivity, favourable environmental impact, and a growing trend to favour richer forms of communications.

New research from Frost & Sullivan, Analysis of the Global Videoconferencing Infrastructure Market, finds that the market earned revenues of $746.6 million in 2011, growing at a strong 26.8 percent over the previous year. The revenues are expected to reach $1.92 billion in 2017, at a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent. Multipoint control units (MCUs) continue to account for the highest revenue share; however, revenue share from non-MCU products increased in the total market in 2011.

The top three vendors control 80 percent of the revenue share but the abundant opportunities have enabled nearly all participants to grow. Partnerships and broad portfolios are vital for all competitors to make the most of the favourable market conditions.

“Emerging prospects in mobile and desktop video, and integration with unified communications solutions are stoking demand for videoconferencing infrastructure,” said Frost & Sullivan Program Manager Rob Arnold. “The ability to offer an end-to-end portfolio, either directly or through partnerships, has become a necessity, especially for smaller vendors.”

On the flip side, costly upgrades to support new components and capabilities, as well as the cost of bandwidth consumption required to support videoconferencing are key issues for decision makers. Further, concerns about the ease of use and management, as well as interoperability of multi-vendor solutions and of new technology with legacy products restrain its widespread adoption.

Some of these issues can be assuaged by transitioning from the traditional hardware-based business model to the more dynamic and flexible software and services models.

Virtualisation and cloud are two of the biggest development and marketing trends this year. Software-based components, cloud services, and bandwidth management will change the market as we know it today. These factors have the potential to lower entry barriers for competitors while posing strategic risk to established business models. Further, these factors aim to reduce the total cost of ownership and enable more pervasive deployment among organisations of all sizes.

“The great potential for business transformation using cloud-based video services will result in radical market shifts,” noted Frost & Sullivan Industry Director Roopam Jain. “Public clouds and managed services are emerging to offer options to new users of videoconferencing and providers of these services need to build and continually enhance their infrastructure.”