The Unified Communications (UC) market in the Middle East region is expected to reach $235 million by 2014, according to a new survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan.

The survey, commissioned by Avaya, a leading provider of business communications applications, systems and services, also revealed that over 50 per cent of enterprises in the region were planning to deploy UC within the next three years.

Frost & Sullivan said the survey was conducted in key markets across the Middle East and included responses from CIO’s and IT decision makers representing various industry verticals.
 
The research reveals current awareness levels for UC solutions at more than 80 per cent, while actual adoption of the technology was still in its early stages, it added.

"This clearly shows that there is significant need to educate enterprises about the integration of UC into their business processes and demonstrate the benefits UC applications,” said Anand Rangachary, managing director, Frost & Sullivan South Asia & Middle East.

"Although there is increasing interest from enterprises across the region in understanding the value proposition of UC, adoption is taking place in phases, with enterprises picking applications based on their business and user needs," he noted.

According to Rangachary, the return on investment (ROI) is one of the biggest obstacles for deploying UC, followed by interoperability.
 
The enterprises often need to be educated and convinced about ROI factors before taking the plunge and those that have already deployed UC and are currently seeking technology upgrades or expansions consider interoperability as a key deterrent.  End-users expect to see vendors map their business needs to UC applications,” he added.

Almost 60 per cent of companies surveyed reported that the global economic downturn had no impact at all on their decision to deploy communication and collaboration tools.

In addition, enterprises are optimistic about the increase in IT budgets with 65 per cent expecting their IT budgets to increase over the next two years.

The research also revealed that more than 59 per cent of enterprises in the Middle East extensively utilize some form of UC, with senior management in more than 30 per cent of enterprises utilizing video and web conferencing and presence information while conducting business.

Currently, large enterprises contribute 52.3 per cent of UC revenues, while 47.7 per cent of revenues come from the SMB sector, Rangachary added.

Nidal Abou-Ltaif, area sales leader of Avaya (Emerging Markets) said, "Its not surprising that companies in the region see ROI as one of the key obstacles to implementing UC. Avaya has identified this concern and developed a revolutionary architecture by which organizations can achieve rapid returns on their business communications investments, while simplifying the development of applications that improve operational performance."

"Avaya Aura enables businesses to leave existing multi-vendor equipment and applications in place while delivering significant cost savings by reducing infrastructure costs and quickly delivering UC applications such as voice, video, messaging and presence to employees regardless of their location or what device they use,” she explained.

Avaya revealed the findings of the research at its annual partner conference that attracted more than 350 partners from across the Emerging Markets region.

According to Frost & Sullivan, after the acquisition on Nortel Enterprise Solutions, Avaya holds the largest market share with 28 per cent of the Unified Communications market worldwide.-TradeArabia News Service