IDC's Technical Computing service is the leading global provider of strategic business planning information on high-performance technical server system environments for the public and private sectors (government, industry, and academia). By examining advanced technologies, applications, and adoption dynamics, this service provides insight into the behavior of existing and emerging segments within the computationally and data-intensive technical computing market.

This service covers the following segments within the technical computing market:

• Competitive segments (from workgroup systems to high-end supercomputers)
• Segmentation by processors, OS, architectures, and price bands
• Regions (North America, EMEA, Japan, Asia/Pacific, and ROW)

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

• Technical server market dynamics and vendor market share
• Technical cluster and grid computing models and initiatives
• Operating systems, support software, and programming models
• Power, cooling, and facilities requirements
• Technical application performance and developments
• Emerging technical applications
• Processor, storage, interconnect, and file system trends
• Computer performance

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

1. Can the high-performance server market continue to sustain its high rate of growth?
2. Which applications are shaping the technical computer market?
3. Which application areas have the greatest affinity for which architectures and processors?
4. What areas will continue to resist adopting clusters?
5. Will grids emerge as the future topology for both technical and commercial users?
6. How will technical markets adopt multicore processors and coprocessors such as FPGAs?
7. 7. What are the trends in emerging markets, such as China and India?
8. 8. How will U.S. and international petascale initiatives affect the HPC market?

IDC's Technical Computing service examines how high-performance hardware and software vendors are positioning themselves to compete in today's market. This service reviews the strategies, market positioning, and future direction of several providers in the technical computing market, including:

Acceleware, Allinea, Altair, AMD, Appro, Blue Arc, Bull, CEI, Cisco, ClearSpeed, Cluster Resources, Cluster Vision, Cray, Dawning, Dell, DRC, EMC, eXludus, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Instrumental, Intel, Interactive Supercomputing, Lang Chao, Lenovo, Lightfleet, Luxtera, MathWorks, Mellanox, Microsoft, Mitrionics, Myricom, Nallatech, NEC, NetApp, Nvidia, Panasas, Peakstream, Penguin Computing, Platform Computing, QLogic, Quadrics, Rackable, RAID, RapidMind, ScaleMP, Scali, SGI, SiCortex, SilverStorm, SiXis, SRC, Starbridge, Sun Microsystems, SuperMicro, TotalView, Visual Numerics, and Unisys.

This service focuses on the following core research. In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct additional research on specific topics, or emerging market segments, via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment.

This study presents IDC's data and analysis for the technical high-performance systems market. The data includes revenue and shipments by competitive segment, technology, vendor, and model.

This study provides a valuable demand-side view of HPC user installations, requirements, and future plans.

Will entry-level workgroup systems be the "next big thing" in HPC?

This study provides a five-year forecast of the technical server and high-performance systems market.

These ongoing announcements highlight significant industry events and vendor announcements.

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-plus years reflects our commitment to investing in our customers.