Cisco, Microsoft dominate Aus UC market

The Australian on-premise unified communications (UC) market grew a moderate 2.4% to $698.5 million in 2012, Frost & Sullivan estimates.

The research firm expects the overall UC market to grow at a CAGR of 5.5% from 2012 to 2019. But due to changes in attitudes towards expensive UC deployments, demand is shifting towards hosted and cloud-based solutions.

Cisco and Microsoft dominate the Australian UC market, together accounting for an over 40% share.

During a Frost & Sullivan survey of IT decision-makers, these vendors were each named as preferred providers by around a third of organisations.

But analysis of the market shows there are a number of disruptive factors waiting in the wings that could impact the current UC business market, a report from the firm argues.

These include the growing significance of Microsoft Lync, the emergence of OTT and cloud-based vendors, and the rise of Google as an enterprise vendor.

“These factors are impacting the market to varying degrees but, when combined with cloud-based solutions, have the potential to significantly change the UC market and threaten the dominance of existing vendors,” said Frost & Sullivan ANZ Head of Research, ICT Practice Audrey William.

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