Date: 29th Nov 2010

Unified communications market grows, reaches highest level since 2008 says Dell'Oro Group

Dell'Oro Group has reported that the Unified Communications market expanded to its highest level since 2008 in the third quarter of 2010. Strong second half seasonality helped offset weakness in Europe as the Unified Communications market expanded 7% sequentially.

"The market rebounded strongly in the third quarter due to robust seasonal quarters from several of the larger vendors, especially in North America, which was able to offset weakness in Europe" commented Alan Weckel, Director at Dell'Oro Group. "Despite pockets of weakness reappearing, we believe that the Unified Communications market will expand significantly in 2010 as existing vendors continue to invest and expand their software offerings and Microsoft begins to actively push Lync," Weckel added.

Reports also suggest that the vendors continue to migrate their installed base over to IP lines, although the process may take another decade to complete. The top eight vendors in the quarter that accounted for more than 80 percent of IP line shipments were: Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel, and Siemens.