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Cisco Live EMEA 2026: Toward a Platform Company

Chris Barnard, Len Padilla, Bruno Teyton — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective analyzes Cisco Live EMEA 2026, highlighting Cisco’s evolution into a platform-centric, AI-driven networking leader. It examines EMEA’s standout performance, the company’s product and platform innovations, and its challenges in security and services. The document provides actionable guidance for Cisco and its partners to capitalize on AI, life-cycle services, and regional opportunities while addressing execution gaps in services and partner enablement.

“Cisco’s transformation into a platform-centric, AI-driven networking leader is clearly resonating in EMEA, where robust growth and innovation are matched by new challenges in services and partner execution. To sustain momentum, Cisco and its partners must double down on life-cycle services, regional differentiation, and the unique requirements of EMEA customers,” said Chris Barnard, vice president, IDC’s European Telecoms and Infrastructure.

Enterprise Workloads Server Infrastructure Market Overview, 2026–2029

Max Pepper — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation looks at the major market trends that are impacting the server market, at both an overall level and a workload level. This presentation looks at the server market in terms of CPU type, product server type, deployment and location, and accelerator trends. Many of these trends interconnect, especially with the impact of AI and data analytics–related workloads, for which nonstandard technologies are heavily used in supporting.

European Commission Launches Cloud Sovereignty Framework

Rahiel Nasir — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study discussed the European Commission’s Cloud Sovereignty Framework, which was released in October 2025. The framework establishes a set of eight sovereignty objectives for cloud service procurement in the EU. These objectives, which span strategic, legal, data, operational, supply chain, technology, security, and environmental sovereignty, aim to set clear benchmarks for what constitutes digital sovereignty within the region.

The framework introduces the Sovereignty Effectiveness Assurance Level (SEAL) and a Sovereignty Score, which make sovereignty a mandatory criterion in public procurement. Tenders failing to meet minimum assurance levels across all objectives are rejected, reinforcing the EU’s commitment to digital autonomy.

IDC views the framework as a good step in clarifying sovereignty requirements and providing much-needed benchmarking for sovereign cloud offerings. But we also raise some concerns about the practicality of some objectives; notably, “Environmental Sustainability Sovereignty,” which may be challenging for smaller providers to achieve, and the aspects of “Strategic Sovereignty” that call for “ownership stability.”

“Will this level the cloud playing field in Europe? If there are homegrown providers that can meet all eight objectives and win the most SEAL points, then it may be possible. But it may prove tricky. Furthermore, what the framework should also factor in are the breadth and range of services a provider has to offer, scalability, skills, innovation capabilities, and contribution to the local (digital) economy.” — Rahiel Nasir, research director, European cloud strategies and lead analyst, worldwide digital sovereignty, IDC

European Hardcopy Shares, 2025

Phil Sargeant — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation quantifies the Western European hardcopy market (printers and multifunction devices) in 2025, analyzing issues, trends, and product advances. It focuses only on the inkjet and laser markets.

IDC PlanScape: Cybersecurity Preparations to Brace for Q-Day

Christopher Tozzi — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

"It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that post-quantum security requires fundamentally new cybersecurity teams and processes," says Christopher Tozzi, adjunct research advisor with IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP). "But it's a gross understatement to assume that nothing needs to change. To prepare for Q-Day, enterprises need to rethink core elements of cybersecurity team structure and operations."

IDC Survey Spotlight: What's the Difference in Agentic AI Maturity Between Native AI and Embedded AI Providers?

Frank Della Rosa — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight presents results from IDC's January 2026 SaaS Provider Pulse Survey. It reveals that agentic AI adoption has entered a decisive phase. While most providers have moved beyond exploration, true differentiation emerges at the operationalization stage — where native AI strategies begin to outpace embedded approaches. The data signals a structural shift: agentic AI is no longer an enhancement layer but a core architectural decision shaping platform strategy, ecosystem positioning, and long-term competitive advantage. Providers that treat agentic AI as foundational infrastructure, not incremental functionality, will define the next generation of SaaS platforms.

MEXT: AI-Driven Memory Tiering for the DRAM Constraint Era

Matthew Eastwood, Ashish Nadkarni, Dr. William Lee, Shahin Hashim — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Vendor Profile examines MEXT, an emerging provider of software-driven memory tiering solutions. The company's core value proposition centers on AI-driven predictive page movement that enables organizations to use lower-cost flash storage as a substitute for a portion of DRAM, without requiring application or operating system (OS) modifications.

This document is timely given the structural reprioritization of memory manufacturing capacity toward AI workloads, sustained pricing pressure on conventional server DRAM, and limited practical alternatives for memory optimization on existing infrastructure. While CXL-based memory pooling represents a potential longer-term architectural evolution, most enterprises remain constrained to current-generation platforms.

This document evaluates MEXT's technology architecture, performance claims, deployment model, go-to-market strategy, ecosystem partnerships, and the considerations enterprise should assess when evaluating predictive memory tiering as part of broader infrastructure efficiency initiatives.

RingCentral Analyst Summit 2026: Unraveling the future of AI in business communications

Jitesh Gera, Denise Lund, Wayne Kurtzman — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The RingCentral Analyst Summit 2026 showcased RingCentral’s renewed strategy and capabilities it is counting on to win in the commoditized UC&C market. With a clear approach to build a verticals-oriented agentic AI platform for customer-focused business communications, the company is expected to create sustainable market differentiation for the times to come.

U.S. Production Page Volume Forecast, 2025–2029

Tim Greene — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides the five-year forecast for the production page volume and delivers insight into the drivers and inhibitors of growth.

"Print remains a vital part of the total communications mix. The demand for production print is not diminished, but the nature of that print, with more short runs, more embellishment, more value are all driving digital production." — Tim Greene, research director, Hardcopy Solutions

Worldwide Quarterly SSD Trends and Four-Quarter Forecast: 4Q25

Jeff Janukowicz — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Pivot Table provides worldwide industry solid state drive (SSD) quarterly trends for the fourth calendar quarter of 2025 and provides a four-quarter forecast for client SSD units, revenue, and capacity and enterprise SSD capacity and revenue.