Company To Watch In the Unified Conferencing Space: Polycom
WebEx is also promoting its tools well, notes Gold. But Kaufhold says that Polycom and WebEx might be beneficial to one another?opening up opportunities for multiple technologies to enhance collaboration. Kaufhold sees high-end competitors?such as Tandberg and Sony’s Video Conferencing Group, as well as unified messaging software vendors such as Forgent Networks?carving a niche for themselves in the unified conferencing space. "We think the worldwide market for the technology will grow to more than $2.2 billion during 2006," says Kaufhold.
He feels that if Polycom can bring its technology from the corporate boardroom to the department meeting room, it will make significant inroads into mainstream business communications. But that will mean price cuts. According to Barton Malow’s Go, a unified conferencing system currently runs his company as much as $50,000. But he predicts that competitive pressure and technological innovations will drop Polycom’s per-unit price to the $10,000 range. When that happens, he says, "Nothing would please me more than having a unit in every job site."
