SMBs in India to Spend US$48.8M on Unified Communications in 2009

Conferencing tools account for 80% of the total India SMB UC expenditure, says
AMI
BANGALORE, India--(Business Wire)--
Small and medium businesses (SMBs, or companies with up to 999 employees) in the
Indian subcontinent are set to spend US$48.8 million on unified communication
(UC) in 2009, up over 2008, according to a new study by Access Markets
International (AMI) Partners, Inc. Medium businesses (MBs, or companies with
100-999 employees) will account for over 40% of the country`s total SMB
expenditure, while small businesses are increasing their adoption of basic UC
solutions.

"India SMBs are looking at UC as a low-cost tool to communicate effectively with
customers and suppliers as well as facilitate communication across multiple
branch locations," says Sumeeta Misra, AMI`s Bangalore-based Research Associate.
"These SMBs seem to be finding smarter ways to cut travel costs, maximize
operational efficiency and improve business & customer strategies by
streamlining their communication infrastructure. Conferencing and collaboration
tools such as video, audio, web conferencing and instant messaging will account
for a majority of the total UC spending."

As India SMBs become more willing to invest in new technology, vendors are
developing alternative modes and platforms in UC. The rise of hosted unified
communication and offering UC in open and interoperable platforms are a few
examples. Communication-as-a-Service, which is an extension of the SaaS model,
will provide UC over a service provider`s network. Knowing the current economic
constraints, the India SMB market is attracted more to on-demand collaboration
applications and network-based solutions for delivering a seamless
business-to-business partnership. Hosted VoIP spending among India SMBs will be
close to US$18M in 2009.

Many vendors feel that the open source UC suite will raise the interest of users
that are looking for a solution with a minimal initial investment. System
integrators are migrating to a solution-selling approach for UC from their
conventional box-pushing strategies. India SMBs are beginning to adopt UC
solutions to enhance the customer experience and enhance business continuity.
For unified communication to become the accepted best practice for India SMBs
vendors and channel partners must overcome some significant challenges such as
clarity in TCO, the need for higher bandwidth, maintenance of IP networks, and
hardware expense to list a few.

Unified communication being a collaborative tool is no longer a point solution
that businesses look at like a voice or a video conferencing solution. Today
companies start off with IP telephony, and then add video application and finish
off with an application to integrate both audio and video. India SMBs are
progressing from using IM and click-to-call services solutions that will enhance
business processes and line-of-business applications.

Related Study

AMI`s 2009 Marketing Telecommunications Products and Services to India SMBs in
the Emerging Asia-Pacific Region report provides Service providers, vendors and
marketers a clear understanding of how the SMB market has been impacted by
business concerns today. It provides detailed analysis on fixed-line telephony,
mobile telephony, Internet, and broadband market in India, coupled with its
current economic environment and future prospects.

AMI-Partners` Technology Sector studies highlight major trends in the context of
current/planned IT, Internet and communications usage and spending. Products and
services covered include established and emerging hardware, software,
applications and business process solutions. The sector reports are based on
AMI-Partners` annual SMB market surveys, "Q-Pulse" quarterly tracking studies
and Global Forecast Model database.

Based on proprietary surveys of partners in the Americas, Europe and
Asia-Pacific, AMI-Partners' technology sector reports are presented in a highly
actionable, graphical format with go-to-market insights and analysis

For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research,
call 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com or visit
www.ami-partners.com.

About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business
services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence - with a
strong focus on global small and medium businesses (SMBs), and extending into
large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to
empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy
perspectives and -go-to-market solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built a
world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT,
telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging
markets.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150
leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The
firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the
SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking
surveys in more than 25 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB
channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests
significantly in collecting survey based information from several thousand SMBs
annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and
analysis.

AMI-Partners
Quoted Analyst:
Sumeeta Misra, (91) 80 4148 2661 ext 44.
smisra@ami-partners.com
or
Media Relations:
In US (New York): Nancy Carty, 212-944-5100 ext 581, ncarty@ami-partners.com
In EU (London): Claudia Jachtmann, (44) 208 987 2756,
cjachtmann@ami-partners.com
In Asia Pacific (Singapore): Matthew Foo, (65) 6220 5535 ext 101,
mfoo@ami-partners.com
In India (Kolkata): Jyoti Singh, (91) 33 4003 3093 ext 223,
jsingh@ami-partners.com
In India (Bangalore): Rati Ghose, (91) 80 4148 2661 ext 36,
rghose@ami-partners.com
In China (Shanghai): Venu Reddy, (986) 21 6390 6298, vreddy@ami-partners.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009