E X C E R P T
I D C M a r k e t S c a p e : W o r l d w i d e E n t e r p r i s e
V i d e o c o n f e r e n c i n g E q u i p m e n t 2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 3 V e n d o r A n a l y s i s
Rich CostelloI N T H I S E X C E R P T
The content for this paper is excerpted from the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Videoconferencing Equipment 2012-2013 Vendor Analysis, by Rich Costello (Doc # 236894). All or parts of the following sections are included in this Excerpt: IDC Opinion, In This Study, Situation Overview, Future Outlook, Essential Guidance, and Synopsis. Figure 1 is also included.
I D C O P I N I O N
The worldwide enterprise videoconferencing equipment market has been experiencing some ups and downs lately — from robust total video equipment market revenue growth in 2011 of 17.5% to quarterly revenue declines in the 1H12 for some of the vendors. This was mostly attributed to uncertainty over macroeconomic conditions in some regions (Europe mostly), a cutback in IT spending in the public sector (government and education) and a further decline in immersive telepresence growth. IDC expects the uncertainty and caution to linger for most of 2012. But positive trends we still see include the increasing uptake of video collaboration by small workgroup, desktop and mobile users, and new video deployment options expanding the enterprise videoconferencing market to reach midsize and small companies now. This IDC MarketScape examines the key players in the worldwide enterprise video equipment market, analyzing their current capabilities as well as their longer-term strategies that impact their ability to service customers and will gain market share going forward. Key criteria, among others, that contribute to a successful enterprise video offering include:
The ability to move beyond standalone videoconferencing, call control, and point solutions and offer a holistic video/UC&C solution that can integrate with business processes in order to be truly transformative to businesses
Vendors that can clearly demonstrate a robust product portfolio, including the ability to support a range of video endpoints in collaborative applications, especially in growing areas of desktop and mobile video use today
The range of interoperability and multivendor support (organizations, particularly large multinationals, typically have multiple vendor systems, devices, and legacy equipment deployed, and these must all interoperate for the videoconferencing solution to be truly valuable.)
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Vendors that can provide flexible delivery options for partners and customers as part of their video portfolio (premises, managed, hosted, cloud)
Strategies that vendors have in place to stay competitive from a cost standpoint (e.g., industry-standard hardware, software, licensing, offshore R&D, and manufacturing)
Business partnerships and sales channels that open up new markets for the vendor's offering, yet still maintain a high level of support and customer care
I N T H I S S T U D Y
This IDC study is a vendor assessment of the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market through the IDC MarketScape model. This assessment discusses both quantitative and qualitative characteristics that explain success in this growing market.
This IDC MarketScape covers nine of the vendors participating in the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market (Avistar, Cisco, Huawei, LifeSize, Magor, Polycom, Radvision, Teliris, and Vidyo). The evaluation is based on a comprehensive and rigorous framework that assesses vendors relative to the criteria and one another and highlights the factors expected to be the most influential to success in the market, both short term and long term.
This study is composed of two sections. The first is a definition of what characteristics IDC believes lead to success in the enterprise video market. These characteristics are based on buyer and vendor surveys and key analyst observations of best practices.
The second part of this study is a visual presentation of multiple vendors into a single bubble-chart format. It concisely displays the observed and quantified scores of the reviewed vendors. The document concludes with IDC's essential guidance to support continued growth and improvement of these vendors' offerings.
M e t h o d o l o g y
This IDC study extends the vendor assessment model called the IDC MarketScape to the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market. The methodology behind this model uses both quantitative and qualitative assessments of vendors' characteristics to explain success in the marketplace and will help anticipate their ascendancy. This study covers nine vendors that provide enterprise videoconferencing equipment solutions, which are key components of collaboration architectures within organizations today.
This evaluation is based on a comprehensive framework that assesses vendors across a wide variety of technical and operational criteria, weighted by factors IDC
expects will be the most influential for short- and long-term enterprise videoconferencing market success.
The IDC MarketScape is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of the global solution providers in the enterprise videoconferencing market. A single chart displays each given company's market share and indicates whether it is over- or underperforming and how well it is suited to compete in the market today and in the future (three to five years from now). The accompanying text explains each contender's major strengths and opportunities/challenges.
IDC MarketScape criteria selection, weightings, and vendor scores represent well-researched IDC judgment about the market and specific vendors. IDC analysts tailor the range of standard characteristics by which vendors are measured through structured discussions, surveys, and interviews with market leaders, participants, and end users. Market weightings are based on user interviews, buyer surveys, and the input of a review board of IDC experts in each market. IDC analysts base individual vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions on the IDC MarketScape, on detailed surveys and interviews with the vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in an effort to provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each vendor's characteristics, behavior, and capability.
IDC employs the following method to arrive at each company's ranking:
Sources. This study is based on a model that is populated with data provided to IDC from a vendor questionnaire, companies' quarterly and annual reports, earnings calls, industry analyst events, interviews with company representatives, IDC research, and news coverage.
Market shares, growth rates, and revenue numbers. This IDC MarketScape primarily covers the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing equipment market, including videoconferencing room solutions, executive and desktop endpoints, and video infrastructure equipment. For companies that do not publicly disclose this revenue, IDC estimates revenue and growth rates based on public information, discussions with the vendor, and knowledge of the industry.
Competitive fitness. Each major competitor's preparedness for current and future market conditions is expressed as a set of two scores. One score expresses a given vendor's current "capabilities," while the other expresses the appropriateness of its "strategies" for the future (IDC bases its assessment of future market conditions on what most likely will be the market's major trends and disruptors). Each of the two scores is broken down into three criteria (product offer, go-to-market capabilities, business capabilities), each of which in turn is broken down into several subcriteria. Both criteria and subcriteria are weighted by importance for a particular market. For each company, we score its qualities with regard to each of the subcriteria, assigning a numeric value. The IDC MarketScape model uses these values to calculate each company's score for each of the criteria and rolls these values up to arrive at the described set of two scores.
D e f i n i t i o n s a n d T a x o n o m y
Enterprise Videoconferencing and Telepresence Equipment
Enterprise videoconferencing equipment comes in a wide range of solutions, offering customers a broad set of price-to-performance feature options. IDC categorizes the following types of videoconferencing systems:
Immersive telepresence includes a custom-designed room environment, multiple high-definition (HD) screens (two to four) with multiple software codecs, HD audio, custom lighting, tables, and so forth — all creating an immersive, life-like experience. Less emphasis is placed on these solutions in this IDC MarketScape.
Room-based videoconferencing includes small group, dedicated
videoconferencing equipment, non-portable or portable, high quality, and less expensive than immersive. This market segment has been transitioning to high-definition video, larger screen formats, and rich, wideband and HD audio, thereby providing users with a much richer meeting environment.
Personal videoconferencing includes all-in-one desktop solutions and dedicated videoconferencing hardware for individual use (not including videophones). For personal videoconferencing applications, many enterprises have deployed "executive systems," which are all-in-one desktop or tablet device solutions that combine the performance of dedicated videoconferencing hardware with packaging designed for individual use rather than for the conference room.
Video infrastructure includes video multipoint control units (MCUs), video software codecs, cameras, screens, and associated audio components.
Other (non-MCU) video infrastructure includes video gateways, gatekeepers, NAT-firewall devices, and scheduling and management systems.
Note: A separate IDC MarketScape on immersive telepresence systems and vendors is planned for late 2012.
S I T U A T I O N O V E R V I E W
The worldwide enterprise videoconferencing equipment market has been experiencing some ups and downs lately — from robust total video equipment market revenue growth in 2011 of 17.5% to quarterly revenue declines in the 1H12 for some of the vendors. This was mostly attributed to uncertainty over macroeconomic conditions in some regions (Europe mostly), a cutback in IT spending in the public sector (government and education) and a further decline in immersive telepresence growth. IDC expects the uncertainty and caution to linger for most of 2012. But positive trends we still see include the increasing uptake of video collaboration by small workgroup, desktop and mobile users, and new video deployment options expanding the enterprise videoconferencing market to reach midsize and small companies now.
F U T U R E O U T L O O K
I D C M a r k e t S c a p e : W o r l d w i d e E n t e r p r i s e V i d e o c o n f e r e n c i n g E q u i p m e n t M a r k e t V e n d o r A s s e s s m e n t
The IDC vendor assessment for the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market represents IDC's opinion on which vendors are well positioned today through current capabilities and which are best positioned to gain market share over the next few years. Positioning in the upper right of the grid indicates that vendors are well positioned to gain market share. For the purposes of discussion, IDC divided potential key strategy measures for success into two primary categories: capabilities and strategy.
Positioning on the y-axis reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well aligned it is to customer needs. The capabilities category focuses on the capabilities of the company and the product today, here and now. Under this category, IDC analysts will look at how well a vendor is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute its chosen strategy in the market.
Positioning on the x-axis or strategy axis indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with what customers will require in three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level strategic decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings, customer segments, and business and go-to-market plans for the future, in this case defined as the next three to five years. Under this category, analysts look at whether or not a supplier's strategies in various areas are aligned with customer requirements (and spending) over a defined future time period.
Figure 1 shows each vendor's position in the vendor assessment chart. Each vendor's market share is indicated by the size of the bubble, and a (+), (-), or (=) icon indicates whether or not the vendor is growing faster than, slower than, or even with, respectively, overall market growth.
F I G U R E 1
I D C M a r k e t S c a p e E n t e r p r i s e V i d e o c o n f e r e n c i n g E q u i p m e n t V e n d o r A s s e s s m e n t
Source: IDC, 2012
IDC believes the following factors and trends will especially shape the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market over the next few years:
While most of the vendors have demonstrated standards-based videoconferencing and telepresence interoperability from an equipment standpoint for some time, interoperability between all forms of conferencing systems (Web conferencing, audioconferencing, mobile devices, etc.) will greatly impact the way enterprises evaluate the ROI of the application. There are multiple levels of interoperability that are being addressed (some more than others), and all will impact video adoption for the better. These levels include system type-to-system type (e.g., Web based to telepresence), legacy-to-next generation, vendor to vendor, network to network, business to business (B2B), and business to consumer (B2C).
The Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC), for example, is a cloud-based UC initiative that is targeted at business-to-business video interoperability initially, with support for other UC technologies and applications on its road map. OVCC is an open video exchange cloud that includes vendors such as Polycom, AT&T, BT, Telefónica, Verizon, Cisco, Huawei, and other leading vendors and service providers (SPs). A goal of OVCC is to enable B2B, and ultimately B2C video communications and the network effect of video adoption worldwide. The popularity of desktop and mobile videoconferencing has continued to grow.
Most of the video and UC vendors now support mobile software clients for smartphones and tablet devices in their portfolios that business customers can download to enable, among other features, video collaboration. In addition, solutions such as Avaya Flare Experience can provide built-for-purpose tablets for mobile collaboration that meets more secure enterprise requirements.
IDC expects these desktop and mobile applications and enhancements to have an increasingly positive impact on the popularity of enterprise videoconferencing, as video moves down market in the enterprise. And the impact of consumers and their personal devices on enterprise video growth also cannot be underestimated here. In addition to the rise of video communications between and among desktop and mobile video users, interoperability will enable many of these same users to join their colleagues in previously unavailable room-based telepresence and videoconferencing collaboration sessions.
Cisco WebEx CallWay, LifeSize Connections infrastructure as a service (IaaS), VidyoRouter Cloud Edition, and Polycom RealPresence Cloud video as a service (VaaS) are just some examples of new hosted or cloud-based videoconferencing offerings that IDC expects to gain increased visibility going forward. These offerings enable video to be deployed as a hosted or cloud resource while removing common barriers to video adoption such as high capital expenses, complexity, infrastructure, bandwidth, management, and scalability challenges. They can enable companies to deploy video with limited IT resources, provide end-user access to video sessions regardless of location for a monthly fee per client or endpoint, and simplify firewall integration, traversal, and management. In short, they can help change the economics of videoconferencing for many companies.
Videoconferencing and telepresence equipment leveraged for applications like video content storage and management, digital signage, rich media content streaming, and application sharing has been drawing significant interest from enterprises — we expect this interest to continue going forward.
Increasingly integrated and simplified UC platforms, including seamless plug-in and management of video, will increase the capabilities to provide video-as-a-managed, hosted, or cloud services and will open paths to cost reduction and commoditization of video.
The customer experience will still rule. This will involve not only the quality and reliability of the video itself but a richer, more intuitive user interface — basically one kind of software interface to manage conferencing from whatever device — across a rich suite of applications with seamless immersion into a company's
V e n d o r P r o f i l e s
The following are profiles (in alphabetical order) on each of the nine enterprise videoconferencing vendors included in this IDC MarketScape:
Cisco
Cisco is ranked as a Leader in this IDC MarketScape. The company launched Cisco TelePresence System (CTS) five years ago, which largely focused on immersive video solutions. With the TANDBERG acquisition, Cisco features a comprehensive portfolio of TelePresence offerings ranging from software clients to desktop solutions to multipurpose and immersive rooms.
Cisco's strength in UC&C is also directly complementary to its TelePresence and video business, with a view that TelePresence puts people at the center of collaboration. The rest of Cisco's UC portfolio of products complete the collaboration picture ranging from voice to IM and presence to WebEx Web conferencing to contact center to social media applications like WebEx Social (formerly Cisco Quad). All of these can be tied together through Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM), providing a single point for call control, signaling, dial plans, and directories.
Stre ngth s
Cisco's strength in networking and UC is highly complementary to its enterprise TelePresence and video business. It can offer a broad range of video solutions, most of which integrate well with its extensive UC portfolio in a one-stop approach for customers.
Cisco Jabber is Cisco's mobile UC and video offering. Cisco Jabber clients will run on a variety of platforms from PCs to Macs to iPads and other mobile devices and support mobile video as well as voice, IM, presence, and other UC features. Conversely, the company recently dropped the Cisco Cius tablet device from its product portfolio.
Cisco's Medianet architecture is specifically designed to make the network aware of video traffic and make video traffic aware of the network. As video grows in importance to enterprises, the Medianet architecture can provide such things as a smarter network, smarter endpoints, cloud services, and shared media services.
O pportun itie s/ C halle n ge s
Cisco indicates that about 50% of its partners have some level of UC specialization and that over 75% of its TelePresence revenue is generated by partners with UC specializations. IDC expects these partners to see increasing opportunities to do Cisco video and UC integrations, which the overall UC market requires for growth.
Cisco's portfolio of TelePresence and videoconferencing solutions is broad and varied as is its UC portfolio. But these portfolios can also be complex and cost prohibitive for many organizations. Cisco must continue to adapt to the growing
trend of lower-cost videoconferencing, pushing down in the enterprise to smaller workgroups and more desktop and mobile users.
Cisco's current TelePresence-as-a-service (TPaaS) solutions support video-hosted services based on either a partitioned or a virtualized call control platform. Cisco currently relies on SP partners to deliver such services globally, with coverage in every geography. Cisco also has its own hosted video service focused on the small and medium-sized (SMB) market segment. This service is branded WebEx TelePresence (formerly CallWay TelePresence) and is available with a limited subset of endpoints — it does not include immersive and the broader CTS endpoint family support.
E S S E N T I A L G U I D A N C E
IDC offers guidance for vendors and buyers of enterprise videoconferencing solutions in the two sections that follow.
A d v i c e f o r V e n d o r s
The vendors need to be aware of, and prepared to demonstrate, that video integration with telephony and UC solutions, such as commonly used instant messaging (IM) clients, and Web conferencing, and other collaboration applications dramatically increases the value of these solutions and emphasizes to customers a growing vendor and market commitment to enterprise UC&C, versus offering purely standalone videoconferencing solutions.
Vendors should help their customers develop video use cases via usage behavior analysis and best practices. Video is becoming a more integral part of the overall UC&C process for many organizations. In addition, IDC sees increasing use of videoconferencing driven by a desire to collaborate better with a wider circle of coworkers, integrate with business processes and applications, provide training activities, and target specific vertical market applications, in addition to scheduled meetings and presentations. One good video use case within an organization many times leads to usage in other areas of the organization as well.
For various technological or cultural reasons, enterprise videoconferencing has never been fully integrated into the fabric of business processes and communications. Even as a base component in most vendor UC portfolios, videoconferencing tended to be given a lower priority status than other enterprise communications applications (e.g., telephony, audioconferencing, Web conferencing, email, and IM) by many organizations. That dynamic is definitely changing, especially for those organizations that use video effectively today.
The majority of vendors have paid a lot of attention to bandwidth optimization, addressing both high bandwidth pricing in some areas and enterprise network monitoring. Whether they approach the issue via preset compression and bandwidth reduction or via dynamic bandwidth modulation, it has been widely felt that bandwidth consumption and management are, and will remain, important competitive
The importance of interoperability has increased with time. Interoperability across vendors and protocols will first differentiate, and then become a must-have, in order for video applications for business to business and business to consumer to expand. IDC expects that formal initiatives will continue to evolve for increasing interoperability across multivendor solutions and network platforms.
Channel sophistication is a key to success. Vendors should continue to enhance partner training to better handle customer video and UC integrations, not only from the technical point of view but also from the consulting and customization point of view.
A d v i c e f o r B u y e r s
There remains a challenge in getting enterprise employees to habitually meet and collaborate via video. This aspect of the cultural acceptance of video is taking time, but we think it is accelerating as the number of videoconferencing systems and services grow, and video becomes more of an integrated UC application for collaboration.
Sponsorship of video applications should be fully endorsed at the corporate level (C level), expanding the use of video collaboration from the top down within the organization — with executive, management, and employee buy-in. Providing incentives for employees to collaborate via video is highly recommended. Organizations should also educate workers on how to collaborate more effectively, including breaking down the personal barriers to success.
Managed video services should be considered for those organizations lacking the IT skills and resources to manage and support enterprise video infrastructure and applications.
As an alternative to deploying a video network infrastructure on-premise, video-as-a-service offerings today can provide much-needed flexibility and a less capital-intensive option for customers to consider for cloud-based video network infrastructure. Look for vendors/partners that can offer several deployment options for customers and prospects, as they will be better positioned to meet the growing need for flexibility and cost-savings requirements.
The adoption of videoconferencing in collaboration applications is accelerating just as all things enterprise communications are quickly becoming IT assets. Therefore, enterprises must consider videoconferencing in the same context as larger IT initiatives including virtualization, UC&C, and how video will be used beyond just conferencing (i.e., for vertical use cases that fit appropriate business models and for integration with business processes and applications).
Organizations considering deploying enterprise videoconferencing solutions need to take more of a strategic look at how implementing this technology will impact the current networking infrastructure, as well as integrate into their environment and business-critical applications now and in the future. There is definitely a movement away from deploying videoconferencing as mostly a standalone solution today.
L E A R N M O R E
R e l a t e d R e s e a r c h Worldwide and U.S. Enterprise Video Network Consulting and Integration
Services 2012–2016 Forecast (IDC #234112, April 2012)
Worldwide Enterprise Videoconferencing and Telepresence 2012–2016 Forecast
(IDC #233538, March 2012)
Worldwide Unified Communications and Collaboration 2012 Top 10 Predictions
(IDC #232897, January 2012)
Predictions 2012: Enterprise Network Infrastructure — Two Words: Mobility and
Cloud (IDC #WC20120110, January 2012)
EMEA Unified Communication and Collaboration 2012 Top 10 Predictions (IDC
#CT01U, January 2012)
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Communications Voice Infrastructure
2011–2012 Vendor Analysis (IDC #232152, December 2011)
IDC Predictions 2012: Competing for 2020 (IDC #231720, December 2011)
Worldwide Unified Communications and Collaboration 2011–2015 Forecast (IDC
#230189, September 2011) S y n o p s i s
This IDC study uses the IDC MarketScape model to provide an assessment of a number of vendors participating in the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market. The IDC MarketScape is an evaluation based on a comprehensive framework and a set of parameters that assess vendors relative to one another and to those factors expected to be most conducive to success in a given market during the short term and the long term.
"Despite current market challenges, IDC still expects overall revenue growth in the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market over the next few years, bolstered by integrations with UC&C applications, video deployment options that make video appealing to and affordable for more companies, and the growing use by small workgroups, desktop, and mobile collaboration users," said Rich Costello, senior research analyst, Worldwide Unified Communications and Enterprise Communications Infrastructure. "In addition to video continuing to push down market among enterprise users, we see the market also expanding to include new midmarket and small business customers."
C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e
This IDC research document was published as part of an IDC continuous intelligence service, providing written research, analyst interactions, telebriefings, and conferences. Visit www.idc.com to learn more about IDC subscription and consulting services. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit www.idc.com/offices. Please contact the IDC Hotline at 800.343.4952, ext. 7988 (or +1.508.988.7988) or sales@idc.com for information on applying the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights. Copyright 2012 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved.
