2011
Report: Video conferencing a $3.8B business by 2016
New research forecasts the global videoconferencing market will be worth $3.8 billion by 2016, with compound annual growth approaching 6 percent.
Research firm Ovum, in its report, Enterprise Video Forecast 2011-2016, said that growth puts video conferencing among the fastest growing ICT segments.
A number of factors are driving the deployment of telepresence, especially at larger scale, said Ovum, including reducing travel costs, improving productivity and reducing carbon footprints.
"The technology is now of a very high quality, so take up is increasing," said Ovum analyst Richard Thurston. "Furthermore, events such as the volcanic ash cloud caused a huge spike in the use of videoconferencing, and helped businesses reassess the use of the technology."
He said large-scale deployments, specifically, will be behind what he expects to be a $1.1 billion telepresence market by 2016.
He added that interoperability issues will be an obstacle and should be a primary focus for vendors.
"Interoperability is still a big stumbling block and, although firms like to claim that they have removed the issue, businesses need to be aware that they could face potential problems," he said. "So it's paramount that vendors work together to solve this issue."
Source: FierceVoIP
