The recession has driven uptake in cloud-based unified communications (UC) technology, a research report published by Frost & Sullivan in February 2010 has shown.

A requirement to push down costs and increase productivity during the economic slump saw European market revenues from cloud-based UC services rise to e46.9 million in 2009. Frost & Sullivan anticipates that this figure will increase at an annual compound growth rate of 79.3% to reach e1.6 billion in 2014.

According to the research organisation, flexibility is one of the main appeals of un in the cloud, as it allows organisation to scale the service they receive as and when their communications requirements change.

However, according to Dorota Oviedo, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan there remain a number of obstacles to adoption. These include a general preference for on-premise IT equipment, poor market awareness and perceived security risks.

“Reliability and security issues are among the main customer concerns,” she said. “Eventually, the cost-effective approach of cloud services in terms of ‘pay-as-you-go’ functionality should dominate the argument, especially in the small and medium-sized business sector.”