IDC Research Types
Analyst
Analyst Profile
Provides complete background information on an IDC analyst. Each profile provides a biography, a notable quotation, a frequently asked question relevant to the particular analyst's focus, and a list of research authored by that analyst.
Team Profile
Lists the analyst members of a topical team. Outlines general areas of coverage and any specialties.
Briefs
Flash
Provides rapid IDC insight and analysis about a significant industry event or conference, merger or acquisition, product announcement, or other fast-breaking news affecting the IT market.
Forecast Update
Provides a short, quick look at an updated forecast and the changed assumptions behind the update. It updates a market forecast published in the same calendar year, identifies changed and key forecast assumptions, and highlights actions for participants to consider in light of the changes.
IDC Insight
Provides coverage and analysis of an industry event, new product or service, or a company announcement or development.
Update
Provides brief overview coverage of what is happening in a market.
Vendor Profiles
Provides a concise, hard-hitting profile of an emerging vendor. A profile will highlight new players and technologies and the potential paradigm shifts or disruptions a vendor represents.
Daily Graphics
Daily Graphic
Illustrates IDC's keen analysis of major market trends in downloadable PowerPoints. Available as a free download the day it appears, an IDC Daily Graphic provides valuable material for speeches and strategic planning.
Event Proceedings
Event Proceeding
Provides published slides, audio, and other materials from IDC and Insights Web conferences, briefings, forums, or other events.
Events
Conference
Delivers dependable, relevant, and high-impact data and insight to help organizations make sound business and technology decisions. eBusiness executives, IT professionals, IT suppliers, and services suppliers benefit from the strategic insight and networking opportunities IDC conferences offer. Generally, all presentation slides are available online, and for most conferences, streaming audio of key discussions is available as well.
Web Conference
Focuses on significant trends and paradigm shifts. Each Web conference will provide attendees with leading-edge market information that will enable them to make smart business decisions. For those unable to attend in person or those wishing to review the content presented, these synchronized multimedia presentations are available online.
IDC DecisionScapes
IDC FutureScape
Serves as a framework for IT/tech professionals' IT strategy and planning for the next one to three years. It lists IDC's top 10 worldwide technology trends for the coming one to three years in a given research area and includes related drivers, projected IT/business strategy impact, and guidance.
IDC MarketScape
Helps IT/tech professionals develop a short list of suitable suppliers when selecting a vendor. Provides an unbiased assessment of tech suppliers in terms of offerings, strategy, capabilities, and other important factors in a given technology area.
IDC MaturityScape
Describes five stages of "maturity" or capability for a particular technology area, helps IT/tech professionals understand where their organizations fit within those stages, and provides guidance on key components for planning successful improvements to a tech initiative.
IDC MaturityScape Benchmark
Helps IT/tech professionals to benchmark their maturity against peers, develop a business case for a tech initiative, and build consensus about where critical IT investments should be made. Presents quantitative research results that show the market distribution for a given tech initiative across the five stages of maturity presented in the related IDC MaturityScape. Shows the results and components of particularly successful initiatives.
IDC PeerScape
Gives IT/tech professionals insight into best practices (and practices to avoid) by providing specific use case examples implemented by peers. Identifies practices that have the most impact on the success of a tech or business initiative, and provides actionable guidance for each practice.
IDC PlanScape
Helps IT/tech professionals to justify and plan a business and/or technology investment or opportunity by exploring why, what, who, and how (these are also the main section headings). Presents key players, critical success factors, risks, and actions to consider for a designated technology and/or business management area.
IDC TechScape
Helps IT/tech professionals with developing IT strategic plans and evaluating emerging technologies in terms of their risk to the business. Shows the adoption curve and risk levels over time for a specific emerging technology. Sorts technologies into three "adoption model" categories (transformational, incremental, opportunistic) to help tech leaders determine the potential impact for their organization.
IDC Links
IDC Link
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece. IDC Links provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
Insights-only Research
Best Practices
Correlates the use of specific practices and superior performance as indicated by an analysis of the benchmarking database. Highlights any significant differences between industries. Conclusions provide a set of process priorities for improving a business case and advice on how to overcome change management issues.
Business Strategy
Helps buyers to assess their business strategies and/or associated business processes, especially as they relate to the use of technology.
Methods and Practices
Provides a step-by-step description of a method or methods that can be applied. As appropriate, the report may compare the benefits and drawbacks of several methods.
Perspective
Presents an article written by an Insights analyst on a topic of special interest to a target audience. This information has generally already appeared in an industry publication and is repackaged for display on the Insights Web site.
Vendor Assessment
Helps buyers select the right IT supplier. The report helps buyers understand the various providers of a technology by providing analysis on market landscape, vendor profiles, vendor market share, and vendor assessments.
Pivot Tables
Pivot Table
Presents an interactive spreadsheet tool for analyzing trends and activities in a specific market segment. These tables are available only through an annual subscription service.
Predictions
Top 10 Predictions
Provides bold, well-conceived market predictions grounded in solid methodologies, primary research, and analyst experience. Lays out a clear road map to understanding major market opportunities and trends.
Presentations
IDC Presentation
Provides the latest, select CIS forecast data, primary research survey findings, and critical IDC analyst opinion in a succinct, easy-to-digest PowerPoint format.
IDC Survey
Presents a hypothesis about what is happening in the market backed by the results of a demand-side or supply-side survey. The focus is on interpreting and analyzing the survey results and providing a strong point of view along with actionable advice.
IDC Survey Spotlight
Answers a timely question and provides a strong opinion backed by IDC survey data. This is a quick nugget of information that is presented in two concise PowerPoint slides.
Insights Presentation
Provides an easy-to-use format to post on the Web presentations that were previously delivered at public forums (such as conferences and events) or for internal client meetings and client presentations. It may not come as part of a consulting/custom engagement.
Market Analysis Perspective
Delivers a concise current state view of a market and insight into the impact of future trends. Business executives, product managers, and MI/AR professionals can use this information when looking to understand buyers' perspectives and market impacts.
Press Releases
Press Release
Announces significant corporate news, such as key hirings or promotions, performance milestones, event highlights, or speaking engagements.
Product Information
Fact Sheet
Describes a research product. Usually details the major areas of coverage and deliverables, and outlines key questions and competitive market conditions that the research will address. Includes links to all published research for a research product.
Studies
Competitive Analysis
Provides a detailed accounting and review of a vendor's programs, processes, products, service, satisfaction, and/or strategy in a target market. This knowledge helps clients reduce their risk of losing market share or enhance their position over the competition.
Customer Needs and Strategies
Focuses on the important decisions that business and IT professionals make every day.
Industry Developments and Models
Provides a detailed assessment of a specific target market's expansion pattern. This analysis helps clients develop and deploy the right mix of value-add products, programs, or services to support their sales and/or partnering efforts.
Market Analysis
Provides an in-depth examination of the dynamics and future of a single market or a group of related markets. The Market Analysis is where we will typically present our forecasts and assumptions, using a key forecast assumptions table.
Market Forecast
Provides the future of a single market or a group of related markets. It presents a new or updated market forecast, including key drivers and assumptions used in the forecast.
Market Share
Provides data on market size, regional allocations, and platform splits as well as a summary of vendor shares for the most recently completed period (year, quarter).
Special Study
Provides a onetime study produced by a research group that is not published as a deliverable under a subscription service.
Survey
Provides a study and interpretation of the results of a demand- or supply-side survey.
Taxonomy
Highlights and emphasizes how IDC tracks the market while also making it easier for customers to find and identify IDC Taxonomy documents.
Technology Assessment
Provides an analysis of the intricacies of an emerging or established technology or the technologies contained within a specific product.
Vendor Needs and Strategies
Provides an in-depth analysis of a company, a small group of companies, a division of a company focused on a particular market, or a best practice that the company exemplifies.
This IDC MarketScape assesses the capabilities and strategies of leading service vendors to support electricity companies in transforming and optimizing their grids (high, medium, and low voltage). IDC Energy Insights believes grid digital ...
This IDC Perspective reviews the role that collaboration applications and company culture play in accelerating productivity, customer experience, and employee experience. Collaboration is the interpersonal activities that creates value when ...
Mining operations will become increasingly dependent on connectivity capabilities as they digitise, and the dependency on data to drive, automate, and inform operational becomes an increasing factor in the management and execution within ...
This IDC Market Perspective provides a review of SAP's Sales Cloud announcements at the company's CX Live event held in Orlando, Florida, May 7–8, 2019. SAP has advanced its Sales Cloud with the acquisition of CallidusCloud and is rapidly ...
IDC Innovators are emerging vendors with revenue <$100 million that have demonstrated either a groundbreaking business model or an innovative new technology — or both. This IDC Innovators study profiles Kopin, North, and RealWear in the ...
This IDC Market Note explains the scenario regarding the shutdown of legacy networks (2G/3G), which IDC has adopted for the latest edition of mobile market forecasts for Western Europe, as published in the EMEA Telecoms Services Database. ...
This IDC Market Perspective looks at the segments, vendors, and devices that shaped the U.S. production print market in 1Q19.
"After a very strong finish in 2018, the first quarter of 2019 showed a dip in overall demand for digital ...
This IDC TechBrief presents the implications of adopting the blockchain technology in retail. The document provides a snapshot of the current status of blockchain adoption in retail as well as its benefits, critical success factors, risks, ...
This IDC Perspective provides IDC's observations and analysis of the recent 2019 Dassault Systèmes (3DS) 3DEXPERIENCE Forum in Las Vegas, Nevada, the United States. IDC's team attended the event to hear about the latest strategy, customer, ...
This IDC Perspective summarizes observations of IDC analysts from practices of leading enterprises addressing today's enterprisewide decision support and decision automation needs. The Perspective highlights the need to identify decision-making ...
Digitalization has mostly been an enterprise-centric theme for the past years, and many of these large organizations have made good progress. Even as enterprises understand the urgency, most SMBs are still in status quo — why is change necessary ...
This IDC Survey presentation highlights results from IDC's 2019 Enterprise Mobility Decision-Maker Survey about enterprise mobility management services (EMMS) adoption and priorities.
"There are so many reasons ...
This IDC Perspective presents one of the themes that emerged at the VeeamON conference in May 2019 at the Fontainebleau, Miami Beach. This year's conference focused on educating attendees on data growth, data management, and cloud technologies. ...
This IDC Perspective analyzes upcoming changes to Veritas NetBackup pricing to support a growing range of backup workloads and better respond to these changing buyer demands. Enterprise software pricing strategies constantly evolve. For ...
This IDC PeerScape compiles the best ideas from several CIOs for dealing with the stiff competition for IT talent. These executives look beyond conventional recruitment strategies to find diverse and motivated talent. They develop deep partnerships ...
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2019 gathered over 8,000 developers in San Jose, California, on June 3–7, 2019, to present Apple's latest developments in its platforms and development tools. This year, Apple showed that it is ready ...
This IDC Perspective presents three examples of drone deployments that help lower costs and increase operational efficiency.
Drones have quickly established as themselves the next-generation platform for a variety of commercial tasks.
"Although ...
This IDC Perspective looks at key developments and main news on the Western Europe healthcare provider industry in 1Q19.
"The first quarter of 2019 saw a rise in investments related to health data integration, software and application ...
This IDC Perspective explores the opportunities today for digital twins in the automotive market in support of connected and autonomous vehicle development and operation. Digital twins are one of the hottest technology models today because ...
This IDC Perspective highlights technology investment priorities that can help providers of virtual pay TV services differentiate and grow services in ways other than through typical price and content choice means. We believe that adopting ...
This IDC Perspective discusses that, as more datacenters deploy NVMe technology, administrators may be in for a few unexpected surprises around energy and rack space consumption trends. This document briefly reviews how NVMe power consumption ...
This IDC Perspective, written for CIOs and senior IT leaders, discusses IT partner networks. Instead of the traditional approach of stitching together separate and often siloed digital projects to fulfill a digital initiative, an IT partner ...
This IDC Perspective provides an overview of the impact of business ecosystems on manufacturers as they manage service parts. It provides some detail as to which components make of the ecosystem supporting service life-cycle management and ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the pros and cons of using community-supported open source software versus using commercially supported, paid-for subscriptions of commercial implementations of OSS.
"The common belief is that community-supported, ...