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 Perspective examines the shrinking PMI levels for North America and the potential impact that economic uncertainty has on manufacturing IT spend. Segment differences are important to consider, and these variances are looked at in ...
This IDC Perspective explores ways to measure the work of external digital transformation (DX) providers that offer digital products, services, and integration to government. These providers will be critical to digital transformation success, ...
This IDC Market Perspective highlights key trends in government IT in the United States and EMEA, focusing on how agencies feel about the success and costs of their ongoing DX efforts. It's clear that government agencies are still struggling ...
This IDC Market Perspective describes the market need for a mobility management service offering called mobile device as a service (MDaaS). This document discusses how some enterprise mobility management services market solutions are evolving ...
This IDC Market Note provides a summary of Toshiba's recent briefing with IDC on its print security solutions and services offerings. This document looks closely at Toshiba's print security services strategy and provides a snapshot of how ...
This IDC Market Note analyzes Microsoft Envision | The Tour event, which included a closed analyst session, held in Paris on November 14, 2019. During this meeting, key executives from Microsoft defined the company's strategy and approach ...
This IDC Perspective shares the highlights of interviews with two large public companies that have completed their FASB compliance process. IDC's goal is to highlight lessons learned and keys to success as an educational tool that will benefit ...
This IDC Perspective reviews the unique cybersecurity challenges related to cloud computing and discusses tools and strategies to protect data and enterprise resources from malware, hackers, and other threats based on insights gained from ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the vital importance of working with program line-of-business executives on government IT organizational transformation. It discusses considerations and obstacles specific to program executives and lays out ...
This IDC Market Note provides a summary of Xerox's recent briefing with IDC on the firm's print security solutions and services offerings. This document looks closely at Xerox's print security services strategy and provides a snapshot of ...
This IDC Market Note analyzes Rackspace and discusses its portfolio, strategy, and company vision, as well as its EMEA expansion. Rackspace recently disclosed updates on its portfolio and go-to-market strategies. This document also discusses ...
This IDC Perspective discusses the 2019 Workday Rising event in Milan on November 13 and 14, 2019. The event was the largest to date, hosting 3,000 attendees — including customers and partners — as the vendor positions itself to become the ...
This IDC Market Note provides a progress report on automation and process digitalization in East Africa. It examines market dynamics and the impact these technologies are having on the journey to a digital economy. Automation and process ...
This IDC Perspective, which is the 51st notable news report, is a regular quarterly review of notable news in the life sciences. It is intended to highlight signposts of both progress in ongoing industry trends and ongoing indications of ...
This IDC Market Perspective features managed hosting developments and evolution for 2019. Many cloud infrastructure providers such as IBM, Oracle, Rackspace, Internap, and CenturyLink are investing heavily on strengthening their bare metal ...
This IDC Perspective offers areas of consideration for finance blockchain use cases, third-party service investments, and blockchain platforms and discusses challenges that could create barriers to adoption.
"Buyers should look to ...
This IDC Market Perspective is the first of two near-term documents on the emerging cloud-stream gaming (CSG) market. This document primarily focuses on the four major international CSG providers that are directly offering services today ...
This IDC Perspective outlines the benefits and challenges that enterprises face when implementing a smart assistant solution and the key factors to consider before deploying smart assistant devices in the workplace.
"Smart assistants ...
This IDC Market Perspective focuses on the important practices that have been adopted by organizations that have demonstrated their ability to accelerate software delivery.
"The notion of 'high velocity' software organizations refers ...
This IDC Market Note provides an overview of Dell EMC's newest converged infrastructure offering, Dell EMC PowerOne, which was announced at the 2019 Dell Technologies Summit.
This IDC Perspective provides an overview of the state of front-end interfaces for operations workers and guidance for operations and IT executives on how to evaluate augmented reality as an emerging technology and strategic priority.
"For ...
This IDC Perspective presents agile software licensing strategies for changing market dynamics. The cloud has not only changed the way software applications are delivered, it is also changing how they are sourced and procured. Cloud-based ...
This IDC Market Note provides an overview of Red Hat OpenShift 4.2 platform released on October 26, 2019.
Red Hat OpenShift 4.2's release of a bevy of developer-focused enhancements consolidate Red Hat's positioning as a market leader ...
This IDC Market Perspective provides an update on the status of Canadian 5G wireless spectrum allocation. The timing of 5G wireless network development and its ultimate success will be largely contingent upon the availability and timely ...
This IDC Market Perspective examines the need to manage skills and staff that have become outdated or obsolete to the extent that individuals need a change of career — a reskilling. Career change and reskilling have been practiced by a few ...