A report released by Synergy Research Group found the worldwide market for
collaborative applications—which the group defines as a collection of
network-based applications that facilitate the working together of two or more
individuals regardless of physical location—amounted to $913.3 million in sales
in the first quarter of 2009.
In general, according to the report, the extended pause in enterprise telephony
sales continues while prospects and customers await the recovery of the global
economy, assess the effects on their budgets and postpone buying decisions
directly affecting collaborative application sales. The research firm’s collaborative
applications market segment include categories such as UC (unified communications)
desktop, presence management, instant messaging, desktop Web/video/audio conferencing
unified messaging and mobile 2.0 applications.
The biggest growth market in collaborative applications was UC desktops.
Synergy defines a UC desktop as a user workspace having the minimum
requirements of access to voice telephony (PBX/KTS/dial tone) and integrated
presence management and instant messaging capabilities.
A UC desktop can be made up of a tightly integrated, single-vendor solution
combining voice telephony and presence/IM or a multivendor telephony and
presence/IM solution integrated into a unified worker’s desktop. Synergy
further breaks the UC desktop into the categories of enterprise (systems that
ship with 150 lines or more) and SMB (fewer than 150 lines).
Avaya led the report’s ranking of vendors for UC desktops, though sales fell
14 percent year-over-year and fell 18.5 percent compared with the first quarter
of 2008. Cisco, Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent fell into second, third and fourth
place, respectively, while Microsoft placed fifth with a 12.6 percent drop in
sales year-over-year and a 28.1 percent drop compared with the first quarter of
2008. The average selling price in the UC desktop market, which has been
holding steady over the past six months, dropped slightly in the first quarter
of 2009.
“We believe those vendors that are in a strong strategic position, such as
Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Siemens, ShoreTel and Mitel, are in good shape to
weather the present business environment and provide a strong UC migration
story,” said Synergy CEO Jeremy Duke. “Those
vendors that are more exposed and are displaying challenges with market share
progress and in addressing other significant industry issues, include 3Com,
Aastra, Nortel, NEC and Toshiba.”
Trends spotted in the Q1 2009 report include the pressure on SMB credit
availability, which is fostering a growing interest in UC outsourcing and increasing
demand for managed service offerings in Q1 2009, and the importance of social
networking—UC vendors continue to look to interface or incorporate social
networking applications into their UC offerings.
In the SMB category, ShoreTel continues to grow its UC offering and carve a
leadership position in the face of significantly larger competitors, according
to Synergy’s vice president of research, Ken Landoline. “Although ShoreTel,
compared to its competitors, has challenges with brand name recognition,
international presence and a limited service provider reseller channel, [it] has
optimized on current market conditions with Nortel’s market challenges and the
company is moving ahead aggressively with channel build-out and international
expansion,” he said.
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