Good News for UC: Channel Revenue GrowingGood News for UC: Channel Revenue Growing
Our discussions here about the state of UC deployment and the market's growth have included a lot of skepticism, but here's one positive data point: According to our sister site, Computer Reseller News , IT solution providers showed almost 10% Y/Y growth in their UC-related revenues from 2006 to 2007, ranking UC behind only virtualization and mid-range servers (!) among top technologies in this sector.
July 21, 2008
Our discussions here about the state of UC deployment and the market's growth have included a lot of skepticism, but here's one positive data point: According to our sister site, Computer Reseller News, IT solution providers showed almost 10% Y/Y growth in their UC-related revenues from 2006 to 2007, ranking UC behind only virtualization and mid-range servers (!) among top technologies in this sector.
Our discussions here about the state of UC deployment and the market's growth have included a lot of skepticism, but here's one positive data point: According to our sister site, Computer Reseller News, IT solution providers showed almost 10% Y/Y growth in their UC-related revenues from 2006 to 2007, ranking UC behind only virtualization and mid-range servers (!) among top technologies in this sector.Among the other interesting UC-related data points from the CRN study:
UC has the longest sales cycle of any of the enterprise technologies examined, at 4.5 months.
The average UC deal was $20,805, placing it just about in the middle of the pack. (Basic security was lowest value at $4K average deal, with enterprise business software suites highest at more than $83K average deal. The average VOIP deal, incidentally, was slightly higher than UC, coming in just below $24K.
And here's encouraging words for troubled times, from a Boca Raton, FL-based solutions provider:
"As corporate purse strings get tightened, [businesses] try to figure how to save money," and IP telephony is one area where they see potential savings, said Gary Stern, CEO of PC Universe. Security services are also in demand, Stern said.
I'm not quite sure how to tie this all into a neat package. On the one hand, 10% Y/Y growth actually seems a little underwhelming for UC, given that the base from which it grew would have been even smaller in 2006-2007 than it is today. VOIP, a much larger market, grew by 8.6%, which is not too far behind the UC percentage.
However, given this study's focus on the channel, the article as a whole reinforces the idea that both UC and VOIP could well end up weathering an economic downturn better than other technology areas. VOIP is seen as having a strong payback case, while both UC and VOIP are seen as being complex technologies that therefore promise better margin for the channel (I blogged about this some time back over on Information Week).
If it's true that the channel will play a big part in enterprise UC deployments, we can expect these numbers and trends to get even stronger.
The average UC deal was $20,805, placing it just about in the middle of the pack. (Basic security was lowest value at $4K average deal, with enterprise business software suites highest at more than $83K average deal. The average VOIP deal, incidentally, was slightly higher than UC, coming in just below $24K.
And here's encouraging words for troubled times, from a Boca Raton, FL-based solutions provider:
"As corporate purse strings get tightened, [businesses] try to figure how to save money," and IP telephony is one area where they see potential savings, said Gary Stern, CEO of PC Universe. Security services are also in demand, Stern said.
I'm not quite sure how to tie this all into a neat package. On the one hand, 10% Y/Y growth actually seems a little underwhelming for UC, given that the base from which it grew would have been even smaller in 2006-2007 than it is today. VOIP, a much larger market, grew by 8.6%, which is not too far behind the UC percentage.
However, given this study's focus on the channel, the article as a whole reinforces the idea that both UC and VOIP could well end up weathering an economic downturn better than other technology areas. VOIP is seen as having a strong payback case, while both UC and VOIP are seen as being complex technologies that therefore promise better margin for the channel (I blogged about this some time back over on Information Week).
If it's true that the channel will play a big part in enterprise UC deployments, we can expect these numbers and trends to get even stronger.
And here's encouraging words for troubled times, from a Boca Raton, FL-based solutions provider:
"As corporate purse strings get tightened, [businesses] try to figure how to save money," and IP telephony is one area where they see potential savings, said Gary Stern, CEO of PC Universe. Security services are also in demand, Stern said.
I'm not quite sure how to tie this all into a neat package. On the one hand, 10% Y/Y growth actually seems a little underwhelming for UC, given that the base from which it grew would have been even smaller in 2006-2007 than it is today. VOIP, a much larger market, grew by 8.6%, which is not too far behind the UC percentage.
However, given this study's focus on the channel, the article as a whole reinforces the idea that both UC and VOIP could well end up weathering an economic downturn better than other technology areas. VOIP is seen as having a strong payback case, while both UC and VOIP are seen as being complex technologies that therefore promise better margin for the channel (I blogged about this some time back over on Information Week).
If it's true that the channel will play a big part in enterprise UC deployments, we can expect these numbers and trends to get even stronger.
"As corporate purse strings get tightened, [businesses] try to figure how to save money," and IP telephony is one area where they see potential savings, said Gary Stern, CEO of PC Universe. Security services are also in demand, Stern said.
I'm not quite sure how to tie this all into a neat package. On the one hand, 10% Y/Y growth actually seems a little underwhelming for UC, given that the base from which it grew would have been even smaller in 2006-2007 than it is today. VOIP, a much larger market, grew by 8.6%, which is not too far behind the UC percentage.
However, given this study's focus on the channel, the article as a whole reinforces the idea that both UC and VOIP could well end up weathering an economic downturn better than other technology areas. VOIP is seen as having a strong payback case, while both UC and VOIP are seen as being complex technologies that therefore promise better margin for the channel (I blogged about this some time back over on Information Week).
If it's true that the channel will play a big part in enterprise UC deployments, we can expect these numbers and trends to get even stronger.
