This IDC study lays out an ecosystem map of IDC's worldwide unified communications (UC) research to provide market definitions and a framework that IDC will use to track, segment, and forecast important technology trends within the marketplace.

"Recognizing the connection and differences between UC and unified messaging (UM) is important, due to both market confusion and adoption dynamics," states Nora Freedman, an analyst in the Enterprise Networks group. "Therefore, our team has created this document to provide readers with more clarity on the applications, hardware, and services that make up the UC ecosystem and to highlight global and regional market trends."