The European unified communications (UC) market totalled $2.6bn (£1.7bn) last year and will increase at a compound average growth rate of 39 per cent every to $13.5bn by 2013, according to market watcher IDC.

Research from the firm also suggests that UC could change the way European enterprises buy voice and data solutions.

IDC drew attention to the fact that most sales efforts have previously been focused on selling to the IT department, but with the integration of voice and data with critical business applications, line-of-business managers are getting more involved in the negotiation process.

Chris Barnard, research director for European telecoms and networking at IDC, said: “In such a challenging market, where spending is plummeting, there is a strong opportunity for solutions that can reduce expenses, such as travel, in the short term. This means that UC, which includes video and audioconferencing and collaboration solutions, is one of the few technology areas well placed to grow during the recession.

“In addition to cost savings, we see that in Europe environmental issues are becoming a major driver of the overall UC market, and specific submarkets such as high-end videoconferencing in particular.”

The analyst has also predicted that UC will offer opportunities for network-related services players in the short and medium term.

In addition, IDC believes that in the first half of the forecast period, premise-based UC solutions will lead the market – the second half will be led by hosted solutions as fixed and mobile providers work out their UC strategies.

“In addition, we believe that the real longer-term UC opportunity lies with communications event management platforms that enable the enterprise to build new applications and enhance existing applications in order to streamline voice-intensive processes and deliver productivity gains,” added Barnard.