The unified communications field continues to show strong growth and is expected to broaden its reach over the next few years.
A recent report by TechNavio found that the market for VoIP and other unified communications solutions will likely grow at an annual rate of almost 16 percent through 2016. The shift away from on-premises options to cloud-based solutions is driving the transition.
Many enterprises have moved their contact centers to solutions found in the cloud, Brad Herrington,solutions marketing senior manager for Interactive Intelligence, said in a conversation with Jim Burton of Unified Communications Strategies.
Cloud-based orders for Interactive Intelligence products increased by 42 percent in the first quarter of this year over the same period last year. Cloud-based revenues for the quarter came to about 46 percent. The company, which started out as a firm offering on-premise unified communications solutions, now sees most of its growth in the cloud. Most of the enterprise's revenue still comes from the on-premise space. The growth seen in cloud-based unified communications orders comes mostly from new customers.
"The fastest growing part of our business is obviously the cloud," Herrington said. "That's what we are hearing about every day. That's where we are getting the biggest uptake in new customers signing new accounts."
The cloud's usage in contact centers has been part of a fundamental shift in the industry. On-premise solutions were at one time very large, whereas the advent of the cloud has led to size reductions. Many contact centers now have between 10 and 30 agents. the smaller call centers often focus more on the quality of the unified communication services offered.
Sangoma is a pioneer in open source telephony, having innovated connectivity technology such as digital and analog cards and VoIP gateways for use in a wide range of open source projects over nearly three decades.