IDC's Software Vertical Views service assists IT suppliers and investors in assessing and quantifying opportunities to provide software into different industry segments in North America and worldwide. The service provides market intelligence through a detailed five-year software spending perspective for 17 industries, across select secondary software markets, and by four company size segments. Subscribers to this service receive direct access to IDC's top industry experts, who can supply competitive analysis and positioning advice, identify strategic partnering opportunities, assist with speaking to the investment community, provide press quotes, and more.

This service covers the following segments of the North American software market, segmented by 17 verticals and four company size segments:

• Applications markets: Enterprise applications, CRM, content and collaboration, and other business applications
• Application development and deployment software markets: Information access, information data management, application development/deployment and life-cycle management, and other development tools
• Systems infrastructure software: Systems and network management software, storage and security software, and systems and networking software

Throughout the year, this service will address the following topics:

• Segmentation and five-year forecast of the software opportunity by industry and company size segments
• Market share of software vendors by top industries
• Software spending and budget trends by industry
• Top investment priorities and market opportunities by industry
• Buyer requirements in the context of industry processes and business issues
• Product positioning and the competitive landscape
• Vertical strategies of leading software firms

Our research addresses the following issues that are critical to your success:

1. How do the current and future market opportunities for software vendors vary by vertical market?
2. Which software firms have the largest share of spending within selected verticals?
3. What vertical strategies do major software companies employ?
4. What can software companies do to enhance their position in each vertical sector?
5. What is the impact of industry business and economic trends and the progression of the economic cycle on software investments across industry sectors?

IDC's Software Vertical Views service arms vendors with a measurement of the IT dollar opportunities in their respective marketplaces. The research provides market segmentation and predictions that act as a guiding system for initiating rational and optimal product decisions and strategies, based on 4,000 end-user surveys. IDC's insights lead to credible, unique, viable, and defensible market positioning and support the identification and prioritization of market efforts as well as successful entry, strategies, and tactics.

Throughout the year, this service will offer insight into the latest trends impacting the market. Potential studies include:

This series of studies examines the market opportunity for selling software into the North American market. The studies provide a five-year software forecast by 17 industries and four company size segments. Studies are centered around the following software markets: application software, infrastructure software, and application development and deployment software. Each study drills down into industry spending on secondary software markets. The industries covered are banking, insurance, other financial services, discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, retail, wholesale, telecommunications, transportation, professional services, other personal services, government, education, healthcare, utilities, resources and construction, and consumer.

This series of studies examines the largest software firms in seven industries based on their revenue for the industry sector and software type. The series also assesses up-and-coming companies that are positioned for leadership within an industry. The studies are centered on the macro segments of the North American software industry: application software, infrastructure software, and application development and deployment software. Market shares are calculated for the following industry sectors: retail/wholesale, communications, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, government, and utilities.

IDC offers a complete market intelligence solution customized to meet your business requirements. The array of products and services available to you includes:

• The opportunity to have your specific questions answered through personal interaction with industry experts who cover the topics and markets in your service
• Around-the-clock access to our market intelligence on idc.com, IDC's personalized Web experience
• A view of the market's future with 12 months of continuous intelligence about its direction and the reasons behind it, along with actionable advice for taking advantage of existing and emerging opportunities
• Special client discount pricing on purchases of research from other services
• Complimentary admission to IDC's annual Directions conference, where you'll hear our latest forecasts and network with IDC analysts and other industry professionals
• Complimentary invitations to monthly executive telebriefings, interactive forums designed to provide you with insights about research and strategies directly from IDC analysts

To find out how our flexible packaging options can meet your specific business needs, please contact your IDC sales executive.

As a privately held company, IDC believes that our customers are our primary constituency. A large percentage of every revenue dollar is reinvested back into our products, including more analysts, more geographic coverage, and extensive primary research.

Our steady growth over the past 10 years reflects our commitment to investing in our customers.