Nexmo looks at the growing opportunity and market for cloud and UC services
It happened again at Mobile World Congress: while carriers and handsets are the major attractions, we’ve been seeing more unified communications players begin to participate over the years. In fact, we have been seeing the mobile world get closer and closer to UC for a while now. If you mention this to a MWC attendee, you’ll likely get some inquisitive looks. Yet the world of UC is undergoing a dramatic evolution.
Why are unified communications on the rise right now?
The term “unified communications” has been around for decades, often referencing to the combination of private branch exchange, email and instant messaging. But, as workforces have become increasingly mobile by default, UC vendors have aggressively developed and added new capabilities to their existing suites to support mobile users.
Application developers are getting involved in cellular messaging, data and voice support. Collaborative and real-time software like Slack is also introducing new communication channels that, holistically, are creating strong potential growth opportunities in the mobile UC market. IDC estimates total revenue from this space to grow from $511.8 million in 2014 to nearly $1.5 billion in 2019 (a total market compound annual growth rate of 23.8%).
What is driving this growth? Well, the way people communicate is getting complicated: the number of channels people use to communicate is increasing very quickly, people expect to do more with their communications and people expect higher quality from these solutions. In short, the ways people communicate is growing beyond a single UC player’s ability to service while a lot of innovative solutions are coming from cloud computing.
APIs and SDKs are yoga for UC
UC vendors understand their solutions must be more flexible to address the various ways their customer’s workforce communicates. UC vendors must support an ever-growing list of technologies while simultaneously supporting legacy hardware. Enhancing mobile collaboration among business units, reducing annual hardware-associated spend poses a problem that APIs and software development kits are uniquely positioned to solve.
I discussed this trend with Mark Winther of IDC, who said: “APIs and SDKs are the most flexible software that exist – they are completely customizable for the customer and are built from the ground up to be easily integrated with existing solutions. By opening up to APIs and SDKs, UC vendors are able to much more quickly support new features, platforms and channels than building them internally.”
Opening to API’s and SDK’s have empowered UC’s in two key ways: first, they can create custom the solutions they need to increase their customer base while avoiding feature sprawl, and secondly, they can significantly increase their pace of product innovation while accelerating sales cycles. Traditionally, UC vendors have been isolated solutions, but as they integrate with APIs and SDKs, they’re becoming more flexible and nimble.
Furthermore, although buying UC solutions will remain a common practice, larger enterprises will also more commonly build their own. Thanks to APIs and SDKs, the cost of creating a proprietary system has dropped significantly. One recent example of a business doing this is SoftBank, which created a WebRTC-based video conferencing solution to replace its own legacy system, using its own logic, without any additional vendors. Companies can build their own communications solutions to address their own specific needs more easily than ever.
A new generation of unified communications is emerging
Not only are people using more and different ways to communicate, they also expect to be more productive with their new communication tools. This requires UC vendors to deliver a consistent experience across their expanding solutions. IDC agrees, saying vendors “should work to ensure a consistent experience across devices and applications so users can enjoy common experiences (such as meetings or conferences) across platforms regardless of their mobile client or communications modality.”
APIs and SDKs benefit both the UC vendors and their customers as they are much easier to customize and integrate with customer’s’ existing solutions. They also allow UC vendors to integrate existing solutions without having to rewrite unfathomable amounts of legacy code.
As we see cloud communications creating revitalization for the UC space, it will serve as a catalyst for growth and innovation in this space. And with every year at MWC, I see more UC vendors getting involved as their world becomes inherently more mobile.
Tony Jamous has more than 14 years of leadership experience in cloud, communication and mobile industries. At MBlox and Boku, Jamous opened up global messaging and payment services. Jamous holds a Masters in Computer Science from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France and an MBA from the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, with a focus on leadership development and organization behavior.
Editor’s Note: The RCR Wireless News Reality Check section is where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
