The unified communications industry will claim $30 billion in market share by 2013, according to Wainhouse Research. The service revenue aspect of that sector will top $17 billion in the same time frame, In-Stat Research found; and, the firm added, SIP trunking will interconnect unified communications “islands,” saving users plenty of money. Finally, VoIP penetration among U.S. businesses alone will reach 79 percent by 2013, compared to 42 percent at the end of 2009, In-Stat reported.
Leading the way is hosted communications services, one of the fastest-growing areas of telecom today. In short, more enterprises want someone else to handle their IT needs, from contact center platforms to unified communications, and the options are continuing to increase. To that point, providers and resellers that haven’t started offering hosted IP services had better do so right away.
Statistics, though, don’t mean much until you see them in action. There was plenty of opportunity to do that last week at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, where hosted IP services dominated conversations, panel sessions, and exhibits.
ACT Conferencing, for instance, displayed its corporate audio/video/Web platform’s new interoperability with Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) hosted unified communications software. While that might sound like rivals helping rivals, ACT said it’s the wave of the future.
“You have to participate in and understand what folks like ... or you’ll lose customers,” said David Gladding, ACT’s senior director of global sales.
Service providers can be both ACT’s customers and resellers. The company also distributes through a large agent channel.
Business VoIP provider Alteva LLC, meanwhile, has integrated its open application programming interface with Microsoft’s unified communications platform. The platform is now available through role-based licenses, rather than per-seat credentials. So, resellers might pitch a client with licenses just for receptionists or executives, telecommuters or conference-room users. Overall, it’s an easier sale, said Alteva CEO William Bumbernick, because customers prefer to think in terms of concrete users rather than numbers of seats.
Plus, Alteva handles all of the back-office and technical details such as billing systems, e911 and taxes.