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
Vendor Profile
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.
IDC Perspective
The IDC Perspective is a flexible doc that seeks to help business and tech buyers assess their business and IT strategy and/or associated business processes, especially as it relates to the use of technology. The document can be used in areas such as:
- Strategy and planning
- Trends and observations
- IT spending and investment
- Vendor conferences and announcements
IDC TechBrief
The IDC TechBrief helps the technology or business executive get smart about a single technology in the context of the business by answering 6 business critical questions about the technology:
- What is the technology?
- When should I adopt it?
- What can it do for my business?
- What are the critical success factors?
- What are the risks?
- Who are the suppliers?
Market Note
The Market Note is a flexible doc that provides IDC analysis and point of view on an industry event, new product or service, or a company announcement or development or fast breaking news.
Market Perspective
The Market Perspective is a flexible doc that analyzes key changes and developments happening in the market. This flexible research type can be used to analyze areas such as:
- Competitive Environment
- Innovation & Market Opportunity
- New Business Models
- Partner & Channel Strategy
- Enterprise Strategies (targeted to supplier)
- Regulation
- Socioeconomics
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
IDC Blink
IDC Blink
Provides timely context and insight around important market trends and events in a short opinion piece with a 2-minute audio clip. IDC Blinks provide IDC's point of view on:
- Financial announcements
- Product announcements
- Mergers and acquisitions or divestitures
- Events
- Response to news
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.
Presentations
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.
Market 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.
Tech Buyer 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.
IDC Market Glance
Provides a look at the landscape of a tech market, including competitive positioning, adjacent segments, and potential partner opportunities.
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
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 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 one-time study produced by a research group that is not published as a deliverable under a subscription service.
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.
IDC Innovators
IDC Innovators is aimed at informing IT buyers about emerging vendors with an innovative new technology or ground-breaking business model. Vendors identified in the document as innovators are linked together within a specific market area and around solving or alleviating a common business problem. Vendors included have annual revenue under $100 million at the time of selection.
Technology Segment
The IDC Technology Segment offers CEMA clients a comprehensive view of a technology segment in one country or subregion and provides a market view and forecast and/or market share and vendor profiles, including performances and strategies. It is specifically intended to serve smaller country markets and subregions.
At Cisco WebexOne 2024, Cisco introduced its comprehensive and thoughtful strategy aimed at driving improved customer and employee outcomes in what it terms a new era of productivity where "experience matters." Cisco's focus is on three ...
This announcement by Google to leverage the Lumen network infrastructure is the latest in an impressive string since June 2024, when Lumen announced a new network architecture to facilitate custom private networks. Lumen Private Connectivity ...
Verizon announced its 3Q24 financial results on October 22, 2024. Total consolidated operating revenue in 3Q24 was $33.3 billion, which was flat compared with 3Q23. However, Verizon reported 2.7% year-over-year (YoY) total wireless service ...
In September 2024, Ericsson, along with telecommunications partners, announced a joint venture (JV) to offer network APIs. The new company, which will be jointly owned by Ericsson and a dozen telecom operators, was initiated to accelerate ...
Verizon Communications has announced its intention to acquire Frontier Communications in an all-cash transaction valued at $20 billion. The acquisition of Frontier will increase Verizon's fiber footprint and position the company to offer ...
Verizon announced its 2Q23 financial results on July 22, 2024. Verizon reported 3.5% YoY total revenue growth during the quarter, attributed to strong wireless revenue, increase in broadband subscribers, pricing initiatives taken during ...
While the outage of international roaming services stemming from Syniverse and the peering partner that impacted travelers at the end of June was short lived, it comes in a year amid a year that has seen a number of different cellular network ...
Over the past two months, a slew of announcements from colocation and cloud infrastructure companies point to the acceleration of deployments to serve AI workloads in colocation facilities. Several major infrastructure vendors have partnered ...
Spectrum Enterprise's top executives highlighted the company's financial successes, network expansion initiatives, client-centric approach, and future solutions for the modern enterprise at its industry analyst event in New York from May ...
This IDC Link explores key drivers for the third-party datacenter services industry. There is a robust demand for highly efficient colocation facilities that offer AI-ready capabilities and global cloud access and networking. New construction ...
Driven by the continued growth in data networking, hyperscalers' voracious demand for colocation facilities, and by the advent of AI computing, the top 3 global datacenter providers all experienced significant higher growth that was above ...
On February 6, Verizon Business announced its Network as a Service (NaaS) Cloud Management, a new service that allows businesses to simplify application deployment and cloud connection management across public, private, and hybrid cloud ...
Verizon had a strong quarter and finished the year with full year 2023 consolidated operating revenue of $134 billion, which was down 2.1% y/y. Full year 2023 and 4Q23 wireless revenues both grew by 3.2% y/y to $76.7 billion and $19.4 billion, ...
On Monday January 8, 2024, Twilio announced the resignation of Jeff Lawson, the cofounder and CEO of the 15-year-old cloud communications and customer engagement company. Khozema Shipchandler, formerly president of Twilio Communications, ...
This IDC Link analyses the initial market impact of the announcement from Cyxtera, a datacenter services/colocation provider. On entering into a new asset purchase agreement with Brookfield, an asset management company, which owns United ...
On November 2, Lumen announced the completion of the sale of its EMEA network assets to London, United Kingdom–based Colt Technology Services for $1.8 billion. This transaction is part of a multifaceted approach to reduce and restructure ...
Cisco WebexOne 2023 revealed a noteworthy shift in Cisco's ability to become more relevant in today's employee and customer engagements. With a major focus on bringing AI across its Webex platform, including software, services, and devices, ...
Verizon reported its 2Q23 earnings with earnings per share of $1.10 compared with $1.24 for 2Q22. EPS was $1.21 on an adjusted basis, excluding special in 2Q23, compared with adjusted EPS of $1.31 in 2Q22. Overall net income for the second ...
Lumen's first NaaS offering is an aggressive first step to leverage its digital infrastructure capabilities to provide cloudlike flexibility and scalability to the legacy networking consumption model. It's a clear and concise service offering, ...
Cisco held its annual customer event Cisco Live in Las Vegas during June 4–8, 2023. The company hosted approximately 20,000 customers, partners, and industry analysts. The company unveiled a wide range of products and services, showcasing ...