With enterprises looking for ways to save money, demand for UC products is expected to grow rapidly. Gartner is predicting the unified communications and collaboration market will reach $7.4 billion by the end of the year, this is a 22 percent jump over 2008.
A host of companies, from Microsoft , IBM,Google and Cisco Systems to Siemens Enterprise Communications, Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya, are looking for ways to expand their reach in the field.
Key hot technologies will be:
1. Software as a service delivery, i.e use what you want when you want with on demand access to applications. this is truly unified communications as it delivers anywhere access from any device.
2. Mobile unified communications- integrating mobility into the enterprise, Smart phones become smart! integrating with existing enterprise communications for open access to applications with secure audits and controls
3. Video collaboration- from not just video phones but any any endpoint 9 have you seen webex on iphone- Awesome!) video collaboration from mobile, phone, desktop, unified access to collaboration
4.Web services either in SaaS delivery or local portal configuration. Delivering applications and data access via web services will enable lowest cost deliver with the greatest interoperability to not just any desktop but to any endpoint.
The emergence of SaaS and C loud Computing will come to life with major deployments and market acceptance in 2010!




