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UC market hits highest growth for two years

Market expands seven per cent in Q3 as Microsoft readies itself for Lync push

The unified communications (UC) market recorded its highest growth rate since 2008 in the three months to October.

According to market watcher Dell’Oro Group, the UC market expanded seven per cent sequentially in the third quarter as robust performances by several large vendors in North America offset weakness in Europe.

The news will come as a welcome relief to comms resellers who found UC a tough sale during the downturn.

Alan Weckel, director at Dell’Oro Group, 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.”

Dell’Oro added that it may take another decade for telephony vendors to migrate their installed base over to IP lines.

The top eight vendors - Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel, and Siemens – accounted for 80 per cent of IP line shipments during the quarter.