Communications as a service (CaaS) is a hot new
market that promises to grow quickly. As the name
implies, CaaS is similar in nature to software as a
service (SaaS), which is an increasingly popular method
for technology organizations to acquire software
resources. In CaaS, communications technology is
located in a data center of a communications service
provider, and is owned and managed by the service
provider as a multi-tenant infrastructure. The service
provider offers this technology to customers on a
pay-per-minute or pay-per-subscription basis, giving
them flexibility in acquiring business services and at
the same time reducing costs.
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that need
enterprise-class communications services but lack
the resources that large enterprises have to acquire
technology and operate it in house already do
business with service providers. The HP CaaS
program can help expand that business.
A 2009 Forrester Consulting study of 900 SMBs,
commissioned by HP and conducted in nine countries
in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, estimates the
potential market for six types of CaaS services, including
self-service interactive voice response (IVR) as a service,
IP contact center as a service, unified communications
as a service, video surveillance as a service, PC back-up
and recovery as a service, and multimedia conferencing
as a service. The study forecasts a total market of at
least $12.3 billion by 2014, with a strong compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31%.
