C-level briefing: Jon Pritchard talks about why IT has struggled to build unified communications offerings from scratch.
What is the future of the unified communications (UC) industry?
Quietly and despite earlier slow adoption, UC has become big business, with the IDC report EMEA Enterprise Communications Survey finding that 93 percent of businesses in Western Europe plan to invest in unified communications over the next 1 to 3 years, with 40 percent of businesses are already using the technology.
The biggest names in UC remain the traditional IT giants such as Microsoft and Cisco, although there remain smaller companies offering niche technologies.
The next big trend in the market might be expected to be consolidation, with companies within the space buying each other up.
