Increased Adoption of Telepresence and New Video Apps

Telepresence and other forms of advanced visual collaboration technologies are moving further into the mainstream of forward-looking business practices. This increase in adoption has been a global phenomenon, as more business leaders follow the numerous application examples of the early-adopters.

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its second quarter 2011 (2Q11) "Enterprise Telepresence and Video Conferencing" report. Their findings demonstrate the progress that's been made so far this year.

Their latest market study provides insights on market size, vendor market share, and analysis for PBX-based video phones and software, as well as dedicated video conference infrastructure and endpoints -- including immersive telepresence and software.

Forecast for Continued Double-Digit Growth

For the first 6 months of 2011, enterprise telepresence and video conferencing equipment revenue is up 24 percent year-over-year -- and according to the current Infonetics market assessment, they expect strong double-digit growth in 2011 over 2010.

"Growth will stay in double-digit territory through at least 2015, thanks to demographic and communication trends favoring video, increasing acceptance of video among users, and specific use cases like tele-learning and tele-medicine," notes Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research.

 Enterprise Telepresence and Video Conferencing study insights include:

• The global enterprise video conferencing and telepresence equipment market jumped 21% to $683 million between the first and second quarters of 2011, setting a record high for quarterly revenue.
• Year-over-year (2Q10 to 2Q11), the market is up 34 percent.
• Cisco, the leading vendor, sequentially increased its videoconferencing and telepresence system revenue 33 percent, and now holds over half the global market share.
• Infonetics forecasts the enterprise telepresence and video conferencing equipment market to grow to $5.4 billion by 2015.
• Dedicated multi-purpose room video systems make up over half the enterprise video equipment market now and will continue to be the biggest revenue-generator among enterprise video solutions.
• Meanwhile, videophones are the fastest-growing segment of the market; they are the smallest in size.
• Regionally, the strongest demand for enterprise video equipment is coming out of North America, China, India, and Brazil.

Enterprise Cloud Applications Ongoing Impact on IT

The transition to managed cloud services is having a trickle-down effect on various stakeholders in the business technology landscape. As an example, in the evolving enterprise communications market, customer premise equipment (CPE) vendors must confront imminent erosion in their installed base -- as cloud services gain traction across the public, private, and hybrid cloud domains.

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, 41 percent of all enterprise communications users -- or 386 million lines or seats -- will be on virtual infrastructure by 2016, which is posing a serious danger to the traditional CPE market.

"For CPE vendors, the cloud threat is real," says ABI senior analyst Subha Rama. "By 2016, the communications CPE market will only grow 4.3 percent, while cloud communications will grow by over 21 percent, reaching $8 billion in revenues."

Smaller vendors with point solutions will see cloud services rapidly displace their installed bases. Moreover, some large systems vendors are becoming cloud providers or key enablers of this migration.

However, according to the ABI assessment, many of the CPE solutions are simply not "cloud ready" and will see performance downgrades when virtualized.

The Top Three Forces Influencing Cloud Migration are:

1. The growing adoption of data center architectures and virtualization technologies.
2. The need to integrate multiple applications to deliver the connected experience to users across different devices, including smartphones and media tablets.
3. The promise of lower costs and increased efficiencies from standardized platforms and processes in the cloud.

Enterprises are adopting a non-linear approach to cloud migration; while certain applications undergo experimentation, others are retained on premises.

Mixed environments and hybridization are becoming the norm, especially with larger enterprises. However, the technology to manage hybrid clouds and to enable seamless movement of applications instances across different vendor clouds is in its infancy.

"Enterprise mobilization is also driving migration to the cloud," says ABI practice director Dan Shey. "Cloud applications ease application delivery for businesses that are increasingly relying on access across fixed and mobile endpoints."