Growth of Market for Videoconferencing, Streaming, and Lecture Capture Driven by On-campus Students and Worried Workers

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/10/08

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A new study concludes that real-time videoconferencing, streaming, and lecture capture solutions for distance education and e-learning markets is growing not to address the needs of remote students but to accommodate demand from campus-based users who want the ability to attend class whenever and however they wish.

Growth is also occurring due to the popularity of on-demand corporate training by adult learners honing skills due to the current job climate. Wainhouse Research predicts that the market for these technologies is expected to be robust through 2013.

"While the value of these technologies has been well known to those focused on distance education for some time, mainstream educators and corporate trainers are beginning to appreciate these media for a variety of local, on-demand as well as real-time applications," said report author Alan Greenberg, senior analyst and partner at the research firm. "All learners will welcome the flexibility to control when, where, and how they access training and course material, and these tools are receiving overwhelmingly high marks for their effectiveness--and ability to enable interactions between educators and learners in new ways."

The study predicts that minimal vendor consolidation in these markets will take place over the short term, since sufficient demand will enable major and minor players to thrive.

We can, the report says, also expect one or more of the major unified communications players to acquire a streaming and archival solution provider due to the market opportunity presented and competitive positioning such an acquisition would provide--particularly against Cisco, which already delivers solutions in this space.

The report also concludes that vendors in the space will need to deliver new tools for mobile learning, and address new requirements for integration of video and streaming with virtual worlds such as Second Life.

The study forecasts that the total market (combining educational and corporate training) for videoconferencing, streaming, and lecture capture solutions will reach $2.4 billion by 2013, with streaming and lecture capture solutions showing the higher compound annual growth rate.