Worldwide Messaging Applications 2005-2009 Forecast: A First Look at 2004 Performance and Key Trends

This IDC study presents IDC's five-year view of the overall worldwide messaging applications market, which comprises the following segments: enterprise instant messaging (EIM), standalone email for enterprises (SEE), standalone email for service providers (SESP), unified messaging for enterprises (UME), and unified messaging for service providers (UMSP). We present our initial look at 2004 worldwide messaging revenue by region and provide updated forecasts for 2005–2009 based on both macroeconomic and market-specific assumptions, along with discussions of key market trends, to provide insight into what is happening and what can be done to make the most of opportunities for messaging products.

Readers of this study will learn which key trends will influence buyers and vendors in an overall messaging applications market that is expected to grow from $1.3 billion in 2004 to $2.1 billion in 2009. Messaging vendors as well as customers will benefit from the insights and analysis that identify the opportunities and pitfalls in this mixture of emerging and maturing markets.

This study does not contain vendor-specific revenue, market shares, or vendor profiles, all of which will be published in a separate study in 2Q05.

"Although messaging products are staples of enterprise collaboration, two years of sluggish IT spending and a successful campaign by vendors to lock customers into maintenance have made some buyers view messaging products as boring and undifferentiated. But tremendous interest in mobile access to enterprise information, a renewed interest in computer-telephony integration (CTI), and new options for modular messaging and Linux-based email combine to put a spotlight on how innovative messaging products can lower costs and make information workers more productive." — Robert P. Mahowald, IDC program director, Collaborative Computing