As IDC Sees It, Tech's 'Third Platform' Disrupts Everyone

27.03.2014
It's easy to dismiss analyst firms and their output. There's a widespread belief that many of them "play for pay" and that much of their work is superficial and reflective of conventional wisdom and not the deep incisiveness that, presumably, clients pay for. I don't subscribe to the former perspective, but the latter has more merit and is often quite justified.

In the past, I've criticized IDC (perhaps the largest of all analyst firms) because I felt its quantitative orientation often overemphasizes existing markets and vendors and, because the survey samples used are too legacy-focused, tends to miss new, innovative offerings. For example, I feel IDC missed the rise of Linux because many of its original use cases escaped notice of traditional infrastructure and operations groups.

However, a recent IDC report, IDC Predictions 2014: Battles for Dominance - and Survival - on the 3rd Platform, puts to rest these kinds of reservations. While understated, its analysis and predictions provide as much drama as any novel, and its denouement is the kind of cliffhanger that makes it, as the saying goes, unputdownable.

Simply stated: You must read this report and think about what it means for your company's future. This is true whether you're an IT user a vendor or, for that matter, a company that thinks of itself as in another business altogether.

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The theme of the report is that what IDC calls the third platform will disrupt information technology profoundly.

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