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Brother Bids for Mutoh

Tim Greene — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This week Brother announced that it has made a bid to acquire Mutoh as part of its strategy to grow its industrial printing business. This IDC Link comments on the potential for the acquisition.

CoreWeave ARENA and the Shift Toward Production-Ready AI Labs

Dave McCarthy — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

As the AI industry transitions from the era of experimental "sandbox" research to large-scale commercial deployment, a critical friction point has emerged: the discrepancy between synthetic benchmarks and real-world production performance. CoreWeave’s announcement of CoreWeave ARENA (AI-Ready Native Applications) represents a strategic shift in the cloud infrastructure market.

ARENA is a production-ready AI lab designed to provide "evidence before production." By mirroring live settings, including complex orchestration, high-throughput storage, and InfiniBand networking, ARENA allows enterprises to validate workload performance and cost-certainty before committing to massive infrastructure investments.

AT&T Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results: Strategic Convergence, Fiber and 5G Scale, and Financial Outperformance — IDC Perspective

Jitesh Bhayani — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

AT&T concluded 2025 with robust fourth-quarter and full-year results, surpassing all consolidated financial guidance and reinforcing the effectiveness of its long-term strategy anchored in 5G leadership, fiber expansion, and customer convergence. The company's fourth-quarter consolidated revenue of $33.5 billion, representing 3.6% year-over-year (YoY) growth, underscores the resilience of AT&T's core connectivity businesses amid heightened industry competition and evolving consumer dynamics. Adjusted EBITDA growth of 4.1% further reflects disciplined cost management, operational leverage from fiber scale, and an increasingly profitable subscriber base.

The mobility segment remains AT&T's growth engine, delivering:

Apple Fiscal 1Q26: Record Quarter Powered by iPhone 17, But Silicon and Memory Supply Challenges Could Slow Momentum

Tom Mainelli — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Apple kicked off fiscal 1Q26 with a "quarter for the record books," delivering $143.8 billion in revenue (+16% YoY), powered by a strong iPhone cycle and another standout Services performance. iPhone revenue reached $85.3 billion (+23% YoY), while Services climbed to $30.0 billion (+14% YoY), underscoring how effectively Apple is pairing premium device demand with a high-margin, recurring revenue engine. Apple also noted its installed base now exceeds 2.5 billion active devices, and gross margin came in at 48.2%, above guidance, reflecting a favorable mix and execution. Looking ahead, Apple guided to March quarter revenue growth of 13–16% YoY while also flagging near-term supply constraints (linked to advanced-node capacity issues around Apple Silicon) and a more challenging component cost backdrop, particularly memory, as factors worth watching.

Celiveo Announces Master Distribution Agreement with Xerox-Lexmark for Its High Security Cloud Print, AI-DMS Solutions

Sharon McNee, Tim Greene, Geoffrey Wilbur — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

The master distribution agreement will enable Xerox-Lexmark to strengthen and enhance its services and solutions offerings by leveraging Celiveo technology. It also significantly expands Celiveo's global footprint and addressable market.

IBM Earnings 4Q25: AI, Automation, Data, and Mainframes Reshaped IBM Market Position

Rick Villars, Stewart Bond, Lars Goransson, Cyrille Chausson, Chris Drake — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

IBM's FY2025 results demonstrate robust growth and operational execution, with total revenue reaching $67.5B (+6% Y/Y @CC) and Q4 revenue at $19.7B (+9% Y/Y CC). All revenue figures in the remainder of this Market Note are Y/Y in constant currency. The operating gross profit margin expanded to 59.5% for the year (+1.7 pts Y/Y). IBM's GenAI book of business surpassed $12.5B inception-to-date, with Consulting and Software as key contributors. The company delivered double-digit growth in Software and Infrastructure, with IBM Z mainframes posting record annual and quarterly results.

Software: Delivered $30.0B in revenue (+9%), with annualized recurring revenue (ARR) reaching $23.6B (+$2B Y/Y). Segment profit margin expanded to 33.1%. Growth was led by Automation (+16%), Data (+11%), and Hybrid Cloud (+12%). GenAI book of business surpassed $2B inception-to-date, supported by strong adoption and strategic acquisitions.

Consulting: Achieved $21.1B in revenue (flat Y/Y), with margins reaching 11.7% (+1.8 pts). The total value of consulting project backlog increased to $32B (+2% Y/Y), and Intelligent Operations grew 2% Y/Y. Over 25% of IBM’s consulting backlog is now linked with GenAI and agentic AI solutions, reflecting IBM's leading role in AI-driven transformation services.

Infrastructure: Posted $15.7B in revenue (+10%). IBM z17 led the segment, recording +48% annual growth and +61% in Q4 which is the highest quarterly increase in two decades. Hybrid Infrastructure grew 17% for the year, while Distributed Infrastructure declined 3% Y/Y..

Intel FY25 Results

Jim Hines, Brandon Hoff, Jeff Janukowicz, Phil Solis — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

On January 22, 2026, Intel announced its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 financial results. Intel reported revenue of $13.7 billion for the quarter, down 4% year over year (YoY) and flat quarter over quarter (QoQ). Full-year revenue was $52.9 billion, flat YoY. (Note that comparisons with prior periods have not been adjusted for the deconsolidation of Altera in 3Q25.)

Japan ESG Application Forecast, 2025–2029

Hitoshi Ichimura, Ko Shikita — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides market results for 2024 and 2025 (2025 data estimated), as well as the market forecast from 2026 to 2029, for the Japan environmental, social, and governance (ESG) application market, as defined by IDC. This study analyzes ESG applications by dividing them into eight segments and reports on market trends in each segment.

"Even as some regions, such as Europe and the United States, proceed with a review and scaling back of ESG initiatives, in Japan, with the mandatory disclosure of nonfinancial information for listed companies set to commence in FY26, especially among large enterprises, these initiatives are expected to continue. Therefore, IT suppliers are required not only to enhance the efficiency of enterprise disclosures but also to provide applications based on platforms that enable the advanced utilization of data," says Hitoshi Ichimura, Software, Services, IT Spending, and IT Buyer, senior research manager, IDC Japan.

This is the English translation of the Japanese document IDC #JPJ53028125.

Microsoft Launches Maia 200 for AI Inference

Dave McCarthy, Brandon Hoff, Jasdeep Singh — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Microsoft's announcement of the Maia 200 marks a pivotal shift, moving from experimental deployments to aggressive competition with silicon incumbents. Unlike its predecessor, the Maia 200 is positioned as a superior alternative, explicitly claiming performance leadership over Amazon's Trainium 3 and Google's TPU v7.

Simpro Group Acquires Delight, Accelerating AI Transformation for Trade Businesses

Aly Pinder — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

The recent acquisition of Delight by Simpro Group highlights the continued excitement and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in field service management (FSM) across a broad range of industries and company sizes. Simpro is not only aggressively investing in its organic AI technology capabilities but with the acquisition, the company is showing its intentions to expand inorganically as well to accelerate reach and AI momentum. This acquisition, when combined with the recent announcement of new Chairman and CEO, Fred Voccola, Simpro is expanding its growth objectives in global markets within the field service and aftermarket space.