Time after time analysts have incorrectly forecasted the seminal event for creating major pull for video conferencing. Earlier, this year, I indicated that the sales and growth trend for the market seems to be on the right path. Video conferencing solutions for the desktop are very inexpensive to acquire, simple to install and fairly effective as a communications tool. Moreover, solutions for the office can be had for thousands of dollars versus tens of thousands of dollars. A lot has changed in the way videoconferencing solutions are designed and built versus five to ten years ago.

International Data Corporation (IDC) recently released revenue numbers for the market that indicate enterprises are investing in videoconferencing at a rate that exceeds the growth of other applications leveraging IP communications. The global video conferencing market saw an increase of 24.3% year over year in Q32011. The leaders in the market are, unsurprisingly, Cisco and Polycom. Cisco’s dominance in the market is a staggering 50.4% with Polycom a distance second with 19.4% of the market. This means that other innovative players such as Vidyo, RADVISION and, to a lesser extent, players like ooVoo are fighting over the rest of the market which is not a bad thing in a market growing as quickly as videoconferencing.

Rich Costello, an IDC analyst, attributes the growth in the market to technology improvements and better overall networks. I definitely agree. It is easy to have an effective videoconferencing session using the office infrastructure and, with expanded home offerings of faster broadband, the experience also translates very well to the home and remote office workers.

As a purveyor of Unified Communications solutions, Broadvox positions collaboration is the driver for videoconferencing. Presence, IM and education will also contribute to the demand. Frost and Sullivan have forecasted a compound annual growth rate of 19% through 2015. In addition to the solutions provided by the equipment vendors/OEMs look for a wide range of video conferencing solutions to be offered as part of cloud computing or video conferencing as a service (VCaaS). VCaaS is viewed as the best way to attract SMBs to use the technology. And when SMBs embrace videoconferencing as a necessary component of their business processes, then major innovation will shortly follow.

So, as you discuss the deployment of Unified Communications, do note the strong pull of videoconferencing. It may just be the arrow you need to secure the deal.

See you on Monday! Have a great Weekend!