At the frontier of optoelectronics and cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), the newborn field of solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics promises improvements for existing devices, and above all new optoelectronics functions. This report focuses more particularly on spontaneous emission enhancement in semiconductor microcavities. Simple approaches to apply CQED concepts to solid-state systems are presented. The major part of this article relates experimental demonstrations of spontaneous emission enhancement for semiconductor quantum boxes embedded in various microcavities, namely micropillars (or VCSEL-type structures) and microdisks. Based on this particular experimental approach, some prospects for future developments in solid-state CQED are proposed.