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 Survey Spotlight explores the diverse ways in which customer expectations have changed over the past five years with regard to service adoption and implementation while considering how service providers can address these changes. ...
This IDC study provides a comprehensive overview of and definitions for the compute infrastructure market in the context of IDC's Computing Systems, Platforms and Technologies CIS as well as the Quarterly Server Tracker. ...
This IDC study provides a comprehensive overview of and definitions for compute and storage infrastructure in the context of IDC's service provider infrastructure research, including the Service Provider Adoption Trends and Strategies CIS ...
This IDC Pivot Table banner book provides the abbreviated, worldwide data for IDC's 2023 Service Provider View publication that examines changing business models, growth in products and services, sell-through opportunities by product ...
This IDC Market Presentation showcases survey findings from IDC's 2023 Service Provider View publication that examines changing business models, growth in products and services, sell-through opportunities by product type, impacts ...
This IDC Market Presentation uses data from IDC's 2023 Service Provider View Survey, which collects responses from 400 IT decision makers and line-of-business (LOB) leaders at tier 2 and tier 3 cloud service providers ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight uses data from IDC's 2023 Service Provider View Survey, which collects responses from 400 IT decision makers and line-of-business (LOB) leaders at tier 2 and tier 3 cloud service providers — aka the "long ...
This IDC Market Glance provides an overview of the cloud service provider market, with a particular focus on the role and importance of tier 2 and tier 3 service providers. It focuses on three primary market segments, namely managed services, ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight explores the use of cloud marketplaces and aggregators by IT service providers, including a focus on the most used marketplaces and the benefits they offer service providers. It includes data from IDC's 2022 Service ...
This IDC Market Presentation uses data from IDC's 2023 Service Provider View Survey, which collects responses from 400 IT decision makers and line-of-business (LOB) leaders at tier 2 and tier 3 cloud service providers ...
This IDC Pivot Table banner book provides the abbreviated, worldwide data for IDC's 2Q23 Cloud Pulse publication that examines cloud adoption and cloud trends among IT buyers, with a focus on deployment choices for cloud applications, application ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight draws upon 1Q23 Cloud Pulse data to uncover the likelihood expansion of a relationship with a service provider after using one to build out a cloud platform.
This IDC Survey Spotlight discusses the results drawn from IDC's Cloud Pulse Survey, 1Q23. This IDC Survey Spotlight looks at the use of service providers versus internal IT teams for broader digital transformation (DX) ...
This IDC Market Presentation reveals that hybrid and multicloud strategies are becoming increasingly important as cloud buyers look to build flexible foundations for new technologies such as AI and platform options that can protect them ...
This IDC Market Presentation focuses on the 2022 and 2023 Cloud Pulse Survey responses of those organizations that class their cloud strategy as "private cloud only" or "private cloud first" — highlighting a preference toward using ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight explores the importance that organizations attribute to edge computing as a way of enhancing their data security, sovereignty, and control. It includes data from IDC's EdgeView 2023 Survey. ...
This IDC Market Presentation discusses the results of IDC's Cloud Pulse, 1Q23. Cloud buyers are increasingly focusing on flexibility when considering cloud projects in 2023 as they navigate uncertain times. Rising cloud costs are top of ...
This IDC Survey Spotlight examines edge infrastructure spending and new edge use case deployment plans. This document contains data from IDC's EdgeView Survey, a multiregion survey of 1,500 respondents fielded in January ...
This IDC Market Perspective explores the pressures, challenges, and choices facing colocation service providers as they progress with their datacenter sustainability strategies. Colocation providers face a confluence of pressures that influence ...
This IDC Market Presentation explores a range of macroeconomic trends — from the Russia-Ukraine War to supply chain disruptions to rising inflation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic — which have created pressures for buyers of edge ...
This IDC Market Presentation looks at IDC's Cloud Pulse 2022 findings on business continuity, disaster recovery, and backup to provide a snapshot of the requirements today for provisions in and for the cloud. Macroeconomic threats are placing ...
This IDC Market Presentation executive summary, from IDC's 4Q22 BuyerView Cloud Pulse Survey, investigates changes to cloud budgets in line with the 2022 financial performance of companies around the world. Current ...
This IDC Market Presentation discusses how the skills shortage is impacting cloud considerations, from how cloud is deployed to how it is managed and maintained. This IDC BuyerView supplement draws upon the four quarters of IDC's 2022 Cloud ...
This IDC Market Presentation has been designed to help companies delivering cloud and associated services navigate current macroeconomic challenges that are impacting the cloud industry and changing cloud buyer behavior. It examines the ...
This IDC Market Presentation examines the results of IDC's 3Q22 Cloud Pulse. It examines IT and cloud adoption trends for the global market, as well as placement of cloud applications and workloads. It also looks at the vendor qualities ...