Unified comms market predictions for 2008

2007 saw a steady increase in the volume of talk about unified communications in the IP-based communications market. As we move into 2008, Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group has made his predictions for what the new year will bring for unified communications in the real world.

The first prediction Kerravala makes is that vendor consolidation will continue. With huge companies holding massive stores of cash and startups bringing their innovative products to market, this is a safe prediction to make. In other predictions, he says that software companies (led by the example of Microsoft) will become more important players in the unified communications market, and that we'll see smaller platforms (including mobile devices) and smaller companies (well down into the SMB market) as critical targets for unified communications activities.

On the down side, the Yankee Group analyst says that video conferencing has hit it peak and will be sliding back down into the "nice to have" category of features. Kerravala also sees IBM starting to lose some of its stature in the unified comms world as it fails to capitalize on the enormous installed base of Notes before competitors like Microsoft peel away a significant number of customers.

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