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Communications & Networks |
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Unified Communications In China:
Still Early, But Providing Direction March 26, 2008 CCID Consulting forecasts China's unified communications (UC) market will shift from a "cultivation" stage to rapid growth in 2010, and revenues will reach 14.04 billion Yuan by 2012. Currently in 2008, vendors will further refine their product features, pricing, and partnerships to achieve steady growth. UC means the integration of disparate communications systems, media, devices and applications. Such a definition can be broad, but so far in China, the integration typically applies to voice mail; Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX; email and scheduling, instant messaging (IM) and conferencing; and collaboration applications. The primary benefit of UC is to reduce decision-making latency, or human latency, and thereby improve an enterprise's overall efficiency. By having information from disparate sources integrated, individuals at all levels will have more complete information sooner, so decisions can be made sooner, and actions executed faster. In 2007, vendors focused more on product technical features and application rather than user-perceived needs. One big obstacle to UC adoption in China is (high) price, especially to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Price is quantifiable, while latency is much less so. China's large, more resource-rich enterprises with more developed and complex IT infrastructures see UC benefits more clearly, and their adoption has been more promising. However, CCID Consulting sees UC as a future trend in networking and communications. Many leading multinational and Chinese vendors are aggressively promoting the concept. During CCID Consulting's CCM 2008 conference, held in March earlier this year, vendors did just that. Vendors at the conference included Cisco, ZTE, Maipu, Avaya and Nortel. For example, Cisco presented the concept of digital media and UC, while ZTE spoke of UC security architecture. Avaya and Nortel discussed the work-flow efficiency benefits of UC. For more information Please contact us for these and other China-related data, information and products. Unless otherwise specified, all information provided is sourced from CCID Consulting. |
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