A report from IT research firm AMI-Partners
found small businesses (firms with less than 100 employees) in the United
States are increasingly using Web conferencing
solutions like GoToMeeting, LiveMeeting and WebEx.
According to the report, nearly half of U.S.
small businesses are using Web conferencing solutions today, with penetration
expected to grow to 80 percent in 2011. However, the study warned that this
trend also brings challenges to many Web conferencing providers. With increased
use of these services, AMI is forecasting
significant displacement to free Web conferencing offers.
"The recent economic downturn heightened cost management among U.S. SBs,
and they identified Web conferencing as a viable, affordable alternative to
travel," said Brian Galgay, manager of cloud services for AMI's
marketing strategy consulting group. "Over the last three years, U.S. SBs
have seen additional benefits in using these solutions. Today, they no longer
view Web conferencing as a cost-cutting measure, but rather as an effective, real-time
collaboration tool."
However, any optimism among Web conferencing vendors regarding potential
revenue growth should be balanced, Galgay said. This growth could be limited by
displacement of U.S.
small businesses' current budget allocation, as well as by actual reductions
caused by these businesses' uptake of free Web conferencing services. Galgay
noted that this trend is a part of the rapid growth of cloud services over the
past 24 to 36 months, which has produced a large number of low-quality, free Web
conferencing solutions.
The report said with more conferencing solution providers competing for market
share, free Web conferencing providers have started to differentiate their
services by adding more robust features. As a result, the gap in features
between free and paid solutions has narrowed significantly. AMI
concluded that this poses a direct challenge to the paid solution providers: As
free solutions add more features like multiple user video conferencing and
desktop sharing, the paid solutions need to offer increasingly more enhanced Web
conferencing solutions.
"Cloud services has had a significant impact on ICT growth and, in
particular, on this software category. The concept of premium Web conferencing
solutions will evolve over the upcoming two to three years. Paid providers will
have to bring the next generation of more advanced Web conferencing solutions
to market, as the lower end of the market, enticed by free, limited offerings,
moves away from premium, paid services," Galgay said. "Conferencing
solution providers willing to generate revenue from usage, and not from
advertising, could protect such revenue erosion by investing in a richer,
fuller product feature set or by specializing in targeted industry verticals."
A 30-country study about cloud services is in the works at AMI,
covering insight on these businesses' usage, perception and plans of
conferencing solutions. Small to medium-size business (SMB) preferences for
cloud-based application bundles, their price sensitivity and purchase channel
preferences are further explored in AMI's
upcoming Worldwide SMB Cloud Services Study. The study provides comprehensive
coverage of platforms and devices; IT infrastructure services; business
productivity applications; business management/line of business applications; and
unified communications. AMI said the
research will be available later in 2010.
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