Audio Conferencing Bridge Vendors Feel the Heat as Enterprises and Service Providers Cut Capital Spending.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers PALO ALTO Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 3, 2003 A cap on capital spending capital spending Spending for long-term assets such as factories, equipment, machinery, and buildings that permits the production of more goods and services in future years. by both enterprise and service provider customers is severely affecting port sales and revenue in the audio conferencing See audioconferencing. bridge market. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.frost.com), World Audio Conferencing Bridge Markets, reveals that revenues in this industry totaled $133.6 million in 2002 and are projected to grow significantly by 2009. "The slow economy has left service providers reluctant to purchase audio conferencing ports, leading to shrinking sales and revenue in this segment of the market," observes Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst David Alexander David Alexander may mean:
Increased capacity utilization Capacity Utilization measures the rate at which a firm makes use of their capital productive capacities, such as factories and machinery. Capacity Utilization generally rises when the economy is healthy and falls when demand softens. by service providers looking to avoid expenditure on additional ports was a major factor for decreasing port sales and revenue in 2002. Lack of capital has seen the enterprise market basing its adoption decisions on short-term cost-cutting measures rather than long-term ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). . On the brighter side, IP functionality is rapidly becoming a key-deciding factor for enterprises. The anticipated adoption of IP conferencing is likely to act as a strong driver for the market in the coming years. "Offering an audio platform that allows IP expansion enables enterprises to extend the longevity of their purchase and avoid being faced with legacy or unusable equipment in the future," says Alexander. "This is the premise that validates IP investment and development by audio conferencing bridge vendors." Audio bridge vendors will have to overcome service providers' skepticism about the Quality of Service (QoS) of IP conferencing by assuring them that IP platforms can be managed with virtually zero downtime and offering value-added features such as Internet-based call management, and enhanced operator assistance. The convergence of audio and data conferencing Sharing data interactively among several users in different locations. Data conferencing is made up of whiteboards and application sharing and are often used in conjunction with an audio or videoconferencing connection. applications within a single enterprise platform is attracting considerable interest as customers realize the value proposition of such an offering. "As these platforms become more readily available in the marketplace, and new converged solutions emerge, Frost & Sullivan expects the demand for audio conferencing bridges to compound," concludes Alexander. The following is a list of key industry participants: Compunetix Inc., eDial, Forum Communications Forum Communications Company is a media firm based in Fargo, North Dakota. The company prints a number of newspapers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. International, Latitude Communications, Octave Communications, Polycom Inc., Sonexis, Spectel Inc., Voyant Technologies Inc. Frost & Sullivan is a global leader in strategic growth consulting. This ongoing growth opportunity analysis is part of the Web and Audio Conferencing Subscription, which also includes market insights on World Web Conferencing A videoconferencing session via the Internet. In order to interact with other participants, attendees use either a Web application or an application downloaded into their client machines. Markets and U.S. Audio Conferencing Services Markets. Frost & Sullivan also offers custom growth consulting to a variety of national and international companies. Executive summaries and interviews are available to the press.
World Audio Conferencing Bridge Markets
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