This IDC study provides a sizing of the worldwide collaborative applications market and submarkets in 2011 and 2012–2016 forecasts for these markets. Historical and forecast revenue data and market share are shown for the total worldwide market and submarkets by geographic region. This study does not contain vendor-specific revenue, market share, or vendor profiles, all of which will be published in separate studies during 2012.

"Collaborative applications are the foundation of modern business operations, but the emerging digital workplace will inevitably require some kind of social layer," says Vanessa Thompson, research manager for IDC's Enterprise Collaboration and Social Solutions. "Companies will not only adopt more people-centric applications but also seek to integrate and embed social into other primary business-critical enterprise solutions to support critical business decisions and more social workflow."