New Report Ranks Leaders in the Changing Enterprise Communications Space

The trends in enterprise communications are changing, but the names remain the same.

Cisco dominates the enterprise communication and networking market by a long shot, according to a report issued this week by Infonetics Research (News - Alert). Battling for second place in this $50 billion market are Brocade, which currently holds the No. 2 spot, with HP and Juniper close behind. Others leaders in the race include Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, and NEC (News - Alert).

Each of the trio fighting for second position has its own strengths, says Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research and lead author of the report. Brocade (News - Alert) has the best financials, he says. HP has the fastest growth. And Juniper is seeing the best improvement in enterprise feedback.

While NEC places No. 5 in the Infonetics scorecard this time around, Infonetics says it is the leader in Japan’s enterprise telephony market.

As Joseph Raccuglia (News - Alert), senior director of the product and solution marketing group for the networks team at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise mentions in the upcoming September issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine, enterprise telephony has changed significantly in recent years, as smartphones, tablets, and mobile networks have given people more flexibility to work from any device or location they prefer. That’s a big contrast to PC-centric environments; in which employees were tied to their desks and required to use corporate-provided endpoints and services.

This new model, commonly referred to as the bring-your-own-device model (BYOD), is great for employees because it gives them more flexibility Raccuglia notes. It is beneficial for businesses because it enables them to enjoy a higher level of worker productivity. But it does create new, but solvable, challenges related to quality of experience and security, adds Raccuglia.

According to a 2013 report by Gartner (News - Alert), 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016. BYOD is most common within midsize and large organizations with $500 million to $5 billion in revenue, according to Gartner.