Cisco rules videoconferencing roost after Tandberg buy

Research suggests vendor owns 50 per cent of a market expected to be worth $5bn by 2015

Cisco controlled half of a videoconferencing and telepresence market worth more than $2bn last year, according to Infonetics Research.

Research from the market watcher finds that global revenues in the enterprise videoconferencing and telepresence market rose 18 per cent in 2010 to hit $2.2bn.

Multi-purpose room systems accounted for the lion's share of the total.

Cisco's acquisition of Tandberg propelled the vendor into the top spot with a 50 per cent market share by revenue, although competitor Polycom retained its lead in units shipped.

Following on from Cisco's Tandberg acquisition, several networking VARs have bolstered their video skills through acquisition, such as Logicalis buying Direct Visual and Didata acquiring mvision.

Infonetics suggested that such interest in the sector is justified as it predicted the market will more than double to hit a cool $5bn by 2015.

Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for enterprise networks and video, said: "Businesses worldwide are looking for richer means of communications with their employees, partners and customers, and enterprise videoconferencing and telepresence solutions are a natural fit."

Immersive telepresence systems are expected to have the highest growth rates of all videoconferencing equipment, the market watcher added.