Next Generation Education
Section Slide Numbers
Executive Summary 3
• Scope and Definitions 5
Video Conferencing in the Education Sector—Market Overview 6 • Key Market Drivers Summary 8 • Key Market Restraints Summary 10
• Key Market Trends 12
Vendor Profiles 17
The Last Word 22
The Frost & Sullivan Story 25
• Frost & Sullivan’s on-going research into the video conferencing market identified education
as one of the key vertical industries for growth of video conferencing technology.
• Video conferencing is transforming the provision of education services. It is helping to meet
familiar challenges in the education sector and is creating new opportunities for
collaborative learning.
• Virtual learning is on the roadmap for most educational institutions and is gaining traction in
schools and universities across Europe, but adoption amongst schools lags behind
universities.
• Although the price of endpoints is declining, cost persists as a significant barrier to adoption.
• Mobility is becoming a key component of video solutions in education, primarily due to the
rise in popularity of distance learning programmes.
• Video conferencing in education is at the early adopter phase. The market is mainly being
driven by third-level institutions while adoption among schools remains at a more nascent
stage.
• The geographic scope of this research is Europe,
including Russia.
• The research splits education into two categories:
Schools and higher education. Higher education
is defined as colleges, universities, online
advanced education courses, and private trade
schools.
• This research covers video conferencing
infrastructure and endpoints as well as associated
services such as integration, maintenance, and
training.
Video Conferencing Market in Education Sector: Geographic Scope,
Europe, 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
• Vendors have reported that they view the United Kingdom and Germany as the largest markets in terms of size and opportunity.
• Connecting disparate campuses across vast distances is a priority for universities in Russia and the Nordic region. Adoption here is predicted to increase rapidly.
• The large number of universities and research institutions in Switzerland and the Benelux region leave these markets ripe for further expansion.
• Third-level institutions are expected to continue to account for the vast majority of educational institutions’ spending on video conferencing infrastructure and endpoints.
• Diverse sources of funding and multiple use cases for the technology make these institutions much better positioned to adopt video conferencing solutions. Moreover, most universities have already well-developed IT systems and the staff and support to integrate and maintain these systems.
• In contrast, schools are much more limited by their sources of funding. They are inclined to be risk
Attract Students Re-group
Dispersed Campuses
Win Funding and Grants Enhanced Learning for Schools Facilitate Distance Learning
Video Conferencing Market in Education Sector: Key Market Drivers, Europe, 2013–2017
Source: Frost & Sullivan
Attract Students
Win Funding and
Grants
Facilitate
Distance
Learning
Visual collaboration facilities can help improve a university’s rankings, which in turn boosts the institution’s chances of attracting the best performing students. Moreover, it helps attract overseas students who are charged higher tuition fees.
State-of-the-art collaboration facilities form part of universities’ strategies to win highly competitive funding, research grants, and private sector investment.
Distance learning programmes are vitally important to video conferencing
solutions’ growth. In particular, soft clients available on PCs/Macs and tablets are growing in popularity, largely thanks to the huge growth in ownership of such devices.
Re-group
Dispersed
Campuses
Universities are faced with the challenge of re-grouping their many dispersed campus locations. Creating one ‘virtual campus’ is becoming an essential part of universities’ technology roadmaps, of which video conferencing is a major
component.
Security Infrastructure Capacity Supporting Mass Deployment Providing an Easy-to-use Service Cost
Video Conferencing Market in Education Sector: Key Market Restraints, Europe, 2013–2017
Source: Frost & Sullivan
Supporting Mass
Deployment
Traditional video conferencing networks were not designed for large-scale deployments such as multiple lecture theatres streaming simultaneously. Providing support for the recording and storage of content can seem like a daunting prospect for IT departments.
Infrastructure
Capacity
The effect of the proliferation of video recording and streaming on education networks is not yet known. While newly built infrastructures and areas with fast broadband connections are well positioned for adoption, latency and network capacity is still an issue on older networks.
Providing an
Easy-to-use
Service
Ease-of-use is vitally important if schools and universities are to incorporate video learning into their courses. First-time experiences can be crucial to gaining
acceptance of a new service.
Security
Ensuring that only those with the correct authority can access material is an important issue. Designing a framework that facilitates use by staff and students,but that limits access to relevant material is a necessary feature.
