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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 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.

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.

Microsoft Copilot Cowork and the Power of Enterprise Context in Agent-Led Work

Arnal Dayaratna — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Mobile World Congress 2026: Professional Services Observations

Len Padilla, Leslie Rosenberg, Chris Barnard — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At Mobile World Congress (MWC), 2026 in Barcelona, global systems integrators (GSIs) once again showcased their thought leadership for helping their telecommunications customers integrate and adopt AI, agents, network APIs, and autonomous networks to drive efficiencies, create new user experiences, and expand revenue streams. This IDC Link will specifically focus on observations from conversations with GSIs at MWC.

NVIDIA's $2 Billion Investment in Nebius and the Race for AI Infrastructure Scale

Dave McCarthy, Jasdeep Singh — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

NVIDIA and Nebius Group announced a sweeping strategic partnership anchored by a $2 billion direct investment from NVIDIA. The agreement aims to aggressively scale Nebius's full-stack AI cloud platform, enabling the deployment of more than 5 gigawatts (GW) of NVIDIA-powered computing systems by the end of 2030.

By taking a significant financial stake in Nebius, NVIDIA is moving aggressively to guarantee that its next-generation architectures, particularly the Blackwell Ultra and upcoming Rubin platforms, have the physical runway required for deployment. For Nebius, the partnership provides significant competitive advantages: guaranteed early access to tier-one silicon, deep co-engineering resources, and adding to the capital required to execute one of the most ambitious infrastructure buildouts in the modern technology sector.