Enterprise Communications

Sneak Peek at 2013

by Dave Michels

Predicting the future is pretty simple. Cisco, Microsoft, and Avaya are all going to die and disappear, and so will I. Predicting the future with contextual timing is far more difficult. The only truly safe prediction for 2013 is that at the end of the year there will be lots of predictions about 2014.

There are clearly some big trends impacting communications – SoMoClo, video, BYOx, virtualization, remote productivity, federation, etc. Most of these are sweeping and creeping changes. Identifying events or shifts that can be pegged to 2013 is a challenge, but that won’t stop me.

Here’s my premonitions for 2013:

Very Likely:

  1. The premises-based market will remain largely flat in 2013, though Lync will grow dramatically.
  2. Hosted/Cloud services will continue to see rapid growth.
  3. Polycom names a new CEO.
  4. Apple becomes less dominant, its market share across all segments drops – in tablets it decreases to < 50%.
  5. WebRTC becomes largely deployed in web browsers and consumer apps begin to leverage it.

Good Chance:

  1. Avaya will split in two or more companies.
  2. RIM begins recovery, and BB10 is a success.
  3. Chambers steps down as CEO of Cisco in 2013, but remains on-board as an adviser.
  4. Google gets serious about the enterprise with Google Apps.
  5. Smartphone growth slows.
  6. Personal video communications explodes. Becomes ubiquitous and heavily used.

For bigger sweeping creeping changes from some of the major UC vendors, see this post.