The growth of Unified Communications (UC) is set to continue in the coming years, if the latest analyst predictions are to be believed.
IDC has claimed the vale of the UC market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) which was worth around $8 billion (5 billion) in 2010 is set to more than double in the next three years, breaking through the $16 billion barrier by 2014.
"IDC predicts moderate year-over-year growth in the next five years and believes that the impact of the credit crunch across the EMEA region will continue to make enterprises more cautious when deciding whether or not to invest in new IT equipment," said Isabel Montero, senior research analyst at IDC.
"Budgets in this region will continue to be more closely monitored, restricted, or delayed until recovery in the economy is more notable."
Although traditional solutions are gaining the popularity now, the analyst firm claimed hosted and cloud-based solution would become the dominant force in the market in the latter part of the next five years, with the trend especially apparent in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market.
IDC also predicted there would be a large number of mergers and acquisitions, with UC firms being bought up by older legacy vendors, keen to incorporate the technology into their product portfolios.
