Unified Communications and Collaboration

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Meet the Experts

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Denise Lund

Research Vice President WW Telecom and Unified Communications

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Jitesh Gera

Research Manager, Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C)



IDC's Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) service is supported by a cross-functional team of IDC analysts to provide a holistic view of how multiple markets intersect in the journey toward UC&C. IDC defines UC&C as a bundled, integrated UC&C stack that may include an advanced telephony solution integrated with messaging (i.e., email, voice, and fax), instant messaging (IM) or chat, presence, and conferencing platforms for web conferencing, audioconferencing, and/or videoconferencing. IDC covers UC&C from multiple technology and services angles, including but not limited to examining the integration of conferencing and team collaboration apps in the market and the unfolding of UC&C solutions to address gaps in employee- and customer-facing communications and collaboration solutions. This unique IDC service delivers in-depth UC&C forecasts, UC&C vendor competitive analysis, a comprehensive UC&C taxonomy, and other periodic and ad-hoc research.


Markets and Subjects Analyzed


  • Top UC&C ecosystem vendors and service providers
  • Cloud UC/UCaaS vendors and service provider offerings as part of UC&C solutions
  • Unified messaging, including email, fax, instant messaging, and voicemail
  • IP PBXs and IP phones
  • Web, audio, and videoconferencing solutions
  • UC&C integration with a subset of collaborative apps, namely conferencing and team collaborative apps
  • Business costs and benefits of UC&C
  • Drivers and inhibitors of UC&C adoption
  • Deploying UC&C solutions
  • UC&C best practices

Core Research


  • Worldwide Unified Communications and Collaboration Forecast
  • Unified Communications and Collaboration Taxonomy
  • IDC's Cloud Communications and Datacenter Services Survey: Unified Communications and Collaboration Results
  • IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Communications and Collaboration Platform Vendor Analysis
  • IDC TechScape: Unified Communications and Collaboration Technologies
  • IDC Market Glance: Unified Communications and Collaboration

In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct research on specific topics or emerging market segments via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment.


Key Questions Answered


  1. What is the worldwide total available market for UC&C for infrastructure, hosted and managed voice, UC collaboration, and other UC&C segments?
  2. What are the most compelling customer use cases for UC&C?
  3. What is IDC's assessment of the strategies and capabilities of the different UC&C ecosystem solution providers relative to each other?
  4. What are the market dynamics, drivers, and inhibitors of UC&C solutions?
  5. How is AI impacting the UC&C ecosystem of providers and changing the adoption and use of UC&C solutions in the market?
  6. How is UC&C unfolding to address employee- and customer-facing use cases?

Companies Covered