New Wainhouse Research Market Study Highlights Changing Nature of Conferencing Service Provider Market

Business Wire, Oct 28, 2004

BROOKLINE, Mass. -- Wainhouse Research--

--New players like Microsoft, Cisco challenging incumbents with new technologies, new services, new business models

--Web conferencing is entering corporate mainstream; growing to greater than 20% of conferencing services

--Audio conferencing volumes continue to grow,and competition continues to heat up

--IP services leading way to unified conferencing and collaboration and changing fundamentals of videoconferencing - audio and web will be next

--Industry consolidation moving ahead, expected to pick up more steam in 2005

Wainhouse Research today announced availability of the company's newest market research report, "Rich Media Conferencing Volume 3: Audio, Video, & Web Conferencing Services," an in-depth study of rich media conferencing application service providers supporting enterprise conferencing applications. The report includes a review of 32 service providers worldwide and a 5-year forecast for Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific.

Completely updated for 2004 this report outlines the new market segmentation that is emerging, with conferencing application service providers, managed service providers, and network providers all vying for the customers' service provider business. At the same time. the basic tradeoffs of hosted services vs. CPE investments are shifting with new products and new vendors focusing on IP-based conferencing and collaboration solutions. All of these factors are also driving vendor consolidation within the service provider industry.

According to the market study, the overall conferencing application service provider (CSP) forecast results in industry revenues growing from $2.9 billion in 2003 to $4.3 billion in 2008, producing a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8%. Web conferencing is forecast to grow at 19%, while the hosted video bridging business is expected to decline at a compound rate of 12% over the forecast period. Growth on a percentage basis is also forecast to be highest in Europe, and lowest in the mature North American market. According to Wainhouse Research, the advent of new services and strong volume growth rates will be countered by price competition, the dominance of low-cost automated services, and a migration to IP infrastructure to further lower costs and prices.

Based on data collected by Wainhouse Research from interviews with over 30 CSPs, the resulting 165-page report contains over 60 figures and includes a detailed five-year forecast for multiple conferencing services across three geographic regions. Also included are the results from a survey highlighting user trends.

The report also includes an overview and analysis of the 32 conferencing service provider companies that Wainhouse Research believes are either leaders in their respective markets or are candidates to become industry players because of their unique technology, innovative business strategy, or position with respect to the impending IP transition.

"Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing Services" is Volume 3 of Wainhouse Research's "Rich Media Conferencing 2004" series. Volume 1 covers audio, video, and web conferencing infrastructure products; Volume 2 covers videoconferencing clients.

"Rich Media Conferencing 2004" individual reports are available separately from $3,495 or together as a full set. Further details on Wainhouse Research and all reports and services are available at http://www.wainhouse.com. Wainhouse Research also publishes a free electronic newsletter, the Wainhouse Research Bulletin, available at the firm's web site.