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Telepresence driving videoconferencing market

Maturing technology and increasing adoption of enterprise-grade telepresence tools will push videoconferencing market to be worth US$1.1 billion by 2016.
Written by Jamie Yap, Contributor

As businesses increasingly adopt enterprise-grade telepresence tools, the global videoconferencing market will surge at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5 percent from this year to 2016, when it will reach US$1.1 billion.

This "explosive growth" of the telepresence market also indicates that companies previously new to this technology will soon be making large purchasing decisions, research firm Ovum said in a statement Monday.

In a particularly rapidly changing supplier marketplace, businesses will face a difficult task in deciding on the right vendor, noted Ovum's principal analyst, Ian Jacobs. "The good news is that telepresence products and services are now technologically mature, and offer a range of productivity-enhancing features and collaboration tools," he added.

Enterprises may choose to return to their legacy videoconferencing vendor to take up telepresence services or look to new-breed video specialists, Jacobs noted. They may also make the choice as a standalone decision or as part of a broader enterprise communication strategy.

The analyst advised organizations to do a "good deal of self-assessment" to understand the reasons and goals for deploying telepresence, including business issues they want to address and features they require from the telepresence vendor.

Last May, Ovum estimated that businesses in Asia-Pacific region would spend US$804 million on videoconferencing in 2016, and noted that telepresence would grow faster than traditional videoconferencing services.

According to estimates from Frost & Sullivan, telepresence revenue in the region reached US$73 million last year.

In a recent ZDNet Asia report, videoconferencing vendors said telepresence capabilities would increasingly be integrated into mobile devices and social media.

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