New research is forecasting explosive growth for enterprise-grade telepresence, predicting that the market will see a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20 percent through 2016, with a global spending on the technology hitting $1.1 billion in 2016.

Researcher Ovum said that the maturing technology offers businesses a range of productivity-enhancing features and collaboration tools for which businesses are yearning. But, it cautions, organizations that do opt to but a telepresence solution need to carefully weigh the goals of its implementations, and understand what business issues the technology will solve.

Maturing technology, Ovum said, will mean big-ticket purchases by businesses soon; those deals will drive revenue for companies like Cisco, Polycom, Alcatel-Lucent and Radvision, some of the leading players in the room-based telepresence segment. Businesses may also look to the increasingly large pool of newer vendors, like Vidyo and other lower-cost suppliers. The choice of vendor, Ovum said, will be critical.

"Businesses will face a difficult task in deciding on the right vendor in a particularly rapidly changing supplier marketplace," said Ian Jacobs, Ovum principal analyst and co-author of the report. "They may return to their legacy videoconferencing vendor for telepresence or look to new-breed video specialists. They might make the choice as a stand-alone decision or as part of a broader enterprise communication strategy."