Businesses seeking to improve their connectivity are increasingly turning to unified communications.
Global sales of unified communications products increased by 21 per cent to £191 million between 2005 and 2006, according to Infonetics Research.
And the growth is set to continue "in the high double digits" until 2010.
Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst at Infonetics Research, said that despite unified communications being "the buzz du jour" there are a range of interpretations of what it means, although there is some agreement.
"What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that there are two key components that form the cornerstone: unified messaging, which stores all message types; and communicator, a presence-enabled directory that shows contact availability by communication mode," he said.
He added that somebody who really is using unified communications will have both messaging and communicator functions, both of which are already being deployed by IP PBX adopters.