Cisco Pulls Away from Microsoft for Collaboration Supremacy

When it Comes to Market Share, Cisco are Leading the pack

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Cisco Microsoft
Collaboration

Published: May 30, 2017

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

In the fourth quarter, the market for UC&C hit an all-time high of around $9 billion. Througout this period, there have been significant sales in teamwork solutions, including Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS), and video as a service solutions. UC&C providers offer UC applications, voice, email, telepresence, and content management.




Cisco have begun to lead the charge for unified communication and collaboration market share, leaving their competitors, Microsoft, in the dust, according to the latest Synergy Research data. Cisco’s growth in this last quarter can be attributed to a range of factors, including its ability to execute solutions on a cloud-based structure, with premises-based call centres in place. What’s more, some competitors, such as Avaya, have had a pretty challenging quarter. Let’s take a look at the current environment.

The Market Leaders for UC&C

Right now, the market leaders for UC&C are Cisco, with 15% of the market, Microsoft with 12.5%, and IBM with 4%. Cisco, the networking giant, have only recently edged into the 15% mark for market share, representing an income of around $1.35 billion in revenue.

According to Synergy research, Cisco’s total market share has increased for the third quarter in a row, thanks in part to the numerous years of experience the company has in selling to the UC collaboration market with cloud solutions and established products. The analytics companies are also keeping an eye on Microsoft however, as they are interested to see where the adoption of Microsoft Skype for Business will take the brand. There’s always a chance that Microsoft will outgrow Cisco.

Premises-Based and Hosted/Cloud Market Leaders

The premises-based market leaders for collaboration are Cisco, with 28% of market share, Microsoft with 17%, and Avaya with 8.5%. Cisco recently hit their five-year peak for on-premises solutions, with 11 percentage points more than Microsoft. Cisco are continuing to pull ahead of the competition because of their versatile structure.

In the hosted and cloud space, Microsoft are the market leaders, with a 9% share of the market, while Cisco follow up with 5.5%, and AT&T come close behind with 4.5%. Microsoft is holding its position in the cloud/hosted space, but Cisco is bringing up the rear. Microsoft has always had a lot of strength in its software-based approach to UC, with many large enterprises investing in Microsoft solutions. However, the development around Spark for Cisco, and the Spark Board mean that there’s room for growth in 2017.

The Fragmented UC Market

The other two significant players within the collaboration market are Avaya and IBM. In total, IBM ranked at number 3 for market share in the fourth quarter, with $360 million in sales. Additionally, Avaya, who recently filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, came third for the premises-based market share count, with 8.5%.

Today’s market remains fragmented, and characterised by an expansive list of high-growth companies. There have been no less than 15 companies achieving a growth rate per year in excess of 20% during 2016. As we look into the future, it’s safe to say that new cloud-based applications will continue to disrupt traditional systems for business communication, delivering strong opportunities for cloud-based solutions.

 

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