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.
This IDC Market Note assesses the virtual reality-, mixed reality-, and GenAI-related news that broke at the Game Developers Conference 2024, which was held in San Francisco, California, in March.
This IDC Market Note assesses three prominent themes that emerged at last month's Game Developers Conference (GDC): the distinctive updates unveiled by the leading commercial game engine suppliers, the upleveling of creator economy tools, ...
This IDC Market Perspective assesses the performance of Meta's Quest 3 VR headset in 4Q23 and puts it in the context of the broader VR and AR market by highlighting its hardware and software positioning in 2024 relative to Quest 2, PlayStation ...
This IDC study provides a view into mobile in-app and in-game advertising dynamics through 2028. It assesses related market trends and technological advancements, and it offers advice to technology suppliers. It also discusses the impact ...
This IDC study sizes and assesses the mobile and handheld console gaming marketplace worldwide through 2028. The forecast includes four regional breakouts: North America, Western Europe, Asia/Pacific (AP), and the rest of the world (ROW). ...
Last Tuesday, Sensor Tower announced it had acquired its chief rival, Data.ai, for an undisclosed sum. The surprise announcement appears to have been driven by a reputational hit that Data.ai took in 2021 when the SEC announced Data.ai had ...
This IDC Survey primarily summarizes the findings of IDC's 3Q23 U.S. Gamer Survey as it relates to engagement and satisfaction among Windows PC, Apple Mac, and Linux/GNU system gamers. The factors that influenced PC hardware buying ...
This IDC Market Perspective examines the key trends that will impact the augmented reality and virtual reality market in 2024. As vendors, enterprise users, and consumers head into 2024, the important lessons learned around use cases, gaming, ...
This IDC study forecasts home video game console hardware, software, and service use and spending through 2027 in four regions: North America, Western Europe, Asia/Pacific, and a combined rest of the world (ROW) region. Eighth-, ninth-, ...
This IDC Survey summarizes the findings of IDC's 3Q23 U.S. Gamer Survey as it relates to PC, game console, and smartphone/tablet gamers' use of platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and TikTok. It examines livestreamers' and gameplay ...
This IDC Market Perspective sizes esports market vendor revenue worldwide through 2023, examines the dynamic between esports’ top tournaments and teams in 2022 and 2023, describes the ways in which esports ecosystem vendors have responded ...
This IDC Survey summarizes findings from IDC's 3Q23 U.S. Gamer Survey as it relates to current user engagement and satisfaction by console SKU or family, as well as the factors that will influence console hardware bundle buying decisions ...
This IDC Survey summarizes findings from IDC's U.S. Gamer Survey, 3Q23, as it relates to virtual reality (VR) and, to a lesser extent, augmented reality (AR) headset adoption and app and content/service use in gaming households. Given ...
This IDC Market Note sizes and assesses trends in the Web3 gaming space in 2023 and offers insight into how 2024 should develop. The aim is to discern whether there's evidence that vendors in and around the gaming industry should invest ...
Microsoft closed its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard on October 13. While the deal greatly strengthens Microsoft's competitive position across the console, PC, and mobile gaming landscape, we'll also likely see some layoffs, ...
This IDC study forecasts digital PC gaming through 2027 worldwide and in four regions: North America, Western Europe, Asia/Pacific (including Japan), and a combined rest of world (ROW) region. From a gamer perspective, the digital PC gaming ...
This IDC Perspective examines three basic types of video games: paid games, classic free-to-play (F2P) games, and live service games. The performance of these game types is considered from a monthly user, revenue, and mergers and acquisitions ...
This IDC study examines the cloud-streamed gaming market from 2019 through 2027. It considers users (MAUs), hours of use (in billions), and revenue (in millions of dollars) worldwide in four geographic regions: North America, Western Europe, ...
The Runtime Fee policy announced last Tuesday (September 12, 2023) by Unity Technologies, a leading game development software and services company based in San Francisco, drew the ire of prominent game studios. IDC does not believe the proposed ...
This IDC Market Analysis Perspective (MAP) provides a high-level view of the video game industry in 2023 and forecasts key market segments through 2027. Typical weekly hours of gameplay, retail spending, and a range of other metrics are ...
This IDC Market Presentation is a joint effort between IDC and data.ai. The deck has four sections: a summary of broad industry trends in 2023; a deep dive into four mobile games that outperformed on downloads and direct spending worldwide ...
This IDC Link discusses the launch of the Alliance for Open Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD), a nonprofit organization that seeks to standardize, develop, and propagate how high-quality digital 3D content may be authored across a range ...
This IDC Market Note summarizes the slate of AAA games that should debut between September and December of this year and whether E3 still serves a purpose in a U.S. gaming industry context.
"We suspect team Xbox will have a relatively ...
Meta unveiled a new VR game subscription service, Meta Quest+, on Monday, June 26. While we believe the service will help lift engagement among Quest 2 and Quest 3 subscribers in late 2023, we doubt it'll attract a high share of Quest users ...
This IDC Survey primarily summarizes findings from IDC's 3Q22 survey of U.S. gamers as it relates to PC/Mac and home console gamer accessory and peripheral purchases. Demographics of PC and console accessory/peripheral buyers are examined ...