This IDC study (which is a translation of the Japanese document IDC #J12380103) provides an analysis of the Japan unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) market in 2011. It also provides market forecasts from 2012 to 2016. IDC further subcategorizes the Japan UC&C market into the UC platform market, UC applications market, UC application services market, and UC professional services market; and does market sizing for these market segments. From a solutions standpoint, the market is divided into the IP telephony market, collaborative applications market, IP conferencing systems market, and IPCC systems market; and an analysis and forecast are done for these market segments. The Japan UC&C market started recovering in 2H10 on the back of growth of the IP telephony, IP conferencing systems, and IPCC systems markets. IDC sees the impact of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in 1H11 and the Thailand flood in 2H11 as being minimal.

"In order for the Japan UC&C market to continue growing, IDC thinks that vendors and system integrators should cultivate mobile, video, and social solutions; and establish techniques for analyzing the large volume of data generated by these solutions," says Takashi Manabe, research manager, Software & Security, IDC Japan.