Report: UC Market Shows Sharp Rebound In Q3

Several of the world's top UC vendors, such as Avaya and Cisco, have pushed aggressive product roadmaps this year, which have helped bolster the market, according to the researcher. Together, Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel and Siemens -- the top eight vendors in UC for the third quarter -- accounted for more than 80 percent of IP line shipments, Dell'Oro said.

"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," said Alan Weckel, director at Dell'Oro Group, in a statement.

Dell'Oro also notes that Microsoft's Lync, which officially debuted Wednesday, could be a game-changer in UC going forward.

"Despite pockets of weakness reappearing, we believe that the unified communications market will expand significantly in 2010 as existing vendors continue to invest and and expand their software offerings and Microsoft begins to actively push Lync," Weckel said.

Vendors are continuing to migrate their installed base to IP lines, Dell'Oro noted, but that process may still take another decade to complete.