Unified Communications Market Reaches New Heights

By Charlene O'Hanlon

The unified communications space set a new high mark in Q3 of 2010, reaching its highest level since 2008, according to research by DellOro Group.

Overall, the market expanded 7 percent sequentially in the third quarter, its growth slowed slightly by weakness in the European market.

Alan Weckel, DellOro Group director, noted that much of the growth this year is due to the activity surrounding the launch of Micosoft Lync Server 2010, slated for Dec. 1.

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,” he said. 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.”

Research also listed the top eight vendors in IP line shipments, which accounted for more than 80 percent of the total line shipments in the third quarter: Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel and Siemens.