Australian businesses ready to adopt Web conferencing

Australian businesses are maintaining pace with the rest of the world in terms of web conferencing adoption, according to a new report from Frost and Sullivan.

The study found the Asia-Pacific Web meeting market is expected to grow at 21 percent annually, nearly the same rate as the worldwide average of 22 percent.

The contribution of Asia Pacific conferencing revenue is also likely to increase progressively from 5 percent in 2005 to 11 percent by the end of 2012.

The Web conferencing services market grew by 20 to 30 percent in the region throughout 2005. The bulk of this growth was generated in the developed markets of Australia, Japan and Hong Kong.

Vendor WebEx dominants the Asia-Pacific Web conferencing services market with 34 percent of the market.

Kevin Mackin, director of WebEx Australia, said the vendor has seen significant local growth.

“Our customer base broadens and deepens each year. The organisations that are big users of WebEx are demanding more specific applications and features. This drives a constant, user-driven evolution for the technology that keeps WebEx in such a strong market position,” added Mackin.

Darryl Nelson, research director for Frost & Sullivan Australia’s ICT practice said one of the emerging trends in the Asia Pacific market is the offering of web conferencing services with enterprise communication tools such as instant messaging, email, VoIP and desktop productivity software.

“WebEx has successfully extended the definition of web conferencing to offer not just the technology solution but a class of applications that solve specific business problems and enable business processes by looking at the entire workflow of applications,” added Nelson.