UC Market Tops $3 Billion

A recently published report from Dell'Oro Group, a networking and telecommunications industry specialist, reveals that the unified communications market surpassed $3 billion during the third quarter of this year, driven in large part by the market’s top two vendors, Avaya and Cisco.

The report indicates that unified communications is driving the enterprise voice market from its hardware base, such as PBXs, to software.

“Functionality that has historically been confined to the core PBX hardware is moving into software applications that run on data servers and phones,” commented Alan Weckel, director at Dell’Oro Group. “Previously unavailable features, such as graphical corporate directories and Web browsing, are becoming telephony features. At the same time, functionality that used to be tied to the phone at a person’s desk, such as caller ID logs or voice mail indication, is becoming available in cell phones and soft phones.

"More than ever before, the overall enterprise telephony market, from the PBX switch to the desktop phone, is shifting its emphasis towards software,” Weckel added.

The report also reveals that enterprise voice application market grew 6 percent sequentially, while the legacy phone market (digital and analog) grew 2 percent sequentially on strength from several large vendors, including Avaya and NEC.