Networking vendor Cisco continues to lead UC collaboration space with a 24 percent market share, while Microsoft dropped off the pace a little in Q3 2013 with its share slipping to 19 percent, said Synergy Research Group.
The UC market size report says Avaya reversed a trend of market share decline by boosting UC application and telephony sales.
Worldwide revenue from UC collaboration – including enterprise voice systems, UC applications, telepresence, collaborative workspace software, email software and enterprise social networks — reached $5.7 billion in the quarter, marginally up on Q3 of last year.
Revenues from enterprise voice and telepresence continued to soften due to a combination of factors, including a growing shift to software-based pricing, strong competition amongst vendors and competition from disruptive technologies such as cloud UC.
The quarter saw particularly strong growth in email software and enterprise social networks, while on a rolling annualized basis collaborative workspace software has seen the strongest revenue growth — a segment in which Microsoft enjoys a 47 percent market share.
In the premise equipment market, there is a transition in spending away from legacy technologies and towards software-based collaborative applications.
Synergy Research Group’s founder and Chief Analyst, Jeremy Duke said Microsoft and other vendors that are transitioning to a software pricing model are benefiting from this spending shift. This change will continue to have a positive impact on future revenues.
Notwithstanding the temporary blip in Q3, Microsoft continues to gain share in UC collaboration and is closing the gap on market leader Cisco, the research report said.
