Analyst Relations – Reports – Singapore News Center

Analyst Relations – Reports

Below is a collection of reports published by leading independent analyst firms on, or including, Microsoft. Microsoft has secured all copyright and publishing privileges with the firms to include the reports on this site for all audiences. All reports were researched and funded by the analyst firms themselves.

2013

Dec. 18, 2013

Forrester Research

Forrester Research, Inc. has positioned Microsoft as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q4 2013. Forrester analyst Boris Evelson notes in the report that “[what] differentiates the Leaders…[is] the completeness, comprehensiveness, and integration of the entire BI architectural stack. In addition to increasingly popular features like analytics, data visualization, dashboards, and data exploration, the Leaders also provide the pixel-perfect, industrial-strength report writers that companies still need.”

Dec. 09, 2013

Forrester Research

Forrester Research, Inc. has positioned Microsoft as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Warehouse, Q4 2013. Forrester notes that “vendors continue to innovate and enhance [EDWs’] real-time analytics, distributed in-memory, advanced compression, and scalable appliance features and its integration with Hadoop, data virtualization, and cloud to support new and emerging use cases.”

Nov. 21, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner rates Microsoft “positive” based on an evaluation of Visio. The report defines enterprise business process analysis (EBPA) as “the discipline of business modeling aimed at transforming and improving business performance, with an emphasis on cross-viewpoint, cross-functional analysis and strategic and operational process-related decision support.”

Oct. 21, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its new Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems. Gartner writes the “OLTP DBMS” market has been mature for quite some time, so there was no to challenge the status quo. However, over the past five years the landscape has begun to shift rapidly with the use of viable in-memory computing as well as the introduction of NoSQL in support of unstructured data in transactions, hence Gartner’s redefinition of the market as “operational”.

Oct. 16, 2013

Forrester Research, Inc.

This report provides an update on desktop and web-based office productivity tool adoption, plans to adopt cloud email and how firms manage major Microsoft Office upgrades. The data from the report was drawn from a survey of 155 IT decisions-makers.

Oct. 09, 2013

Gartner, Inc., Thomas J. Bittman

Gartner analyst Thomas Bittman advises clients what to consider when choosing the best hypervisor for different private and hybrid cloud scenarios, and discusses the evolution of the server virtualization market. According to Gartner, “The good news is this market, once dominated by a single vendor with the ability to charge anything it wanted, is now competitive. Take advantage of that.”

Oct. 01, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Visionaries quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony. Gartner writes that IT organizations must satisfy new requirements for voice and unified communications while staying within budget. The research aims to help IT personnel select the best vendors that meet short- and long-term objectives.

Sept. 24, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management. Gartner writes that ECM delivers solid business benefits to IT leaders as the market shows continued growth. The report evaluates 23 vendors who are addressing increased demands for better mobile and cloud capabilities, as well as more rigorous expectations for vertically specific needs.

Sept. 18, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Microsoft SharePoint receives a “Good” product viability rating and Yammer receives an “Excellent” rating in Gartner’s report Critical Capabilities for Social Software in the Workplace. Gartner writes that the social software market has achieved widespread consensus about what the most common features are and roughly how they should work. Gartner also notes that, as the market matures, expectations for basic features have converged while vendors innovate with specialized functionality.

Sept. 13, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals. Gartner defines a portal as a Web software infrastructure that provides interaction with relevant information assets, (for example, information/content, applications and business processes), knowledge assets and human assets by select targeted audiences, delivered in a highly personalized manner. According to Gartner, the horizontal portal market is responding to the combined influences of mobile, social, cloud, big data and consumerization. Long-established vendors are broadening their offerings, and new players are increasingly exploiting alternative approaches in this established, but evolving market..

Sept. 11, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace. The report includes vendors whose software products are used primarily to support people working together in teams, communities or networks.

Sept. 01, 2013

Nucleus Research

Microsoft announced planned availability for the next release of Dynamics NAV, 2013 R2, for October 2013. Integration between Dynamics NAV, Office 365, and SharePoint will make it easier for users to work without disruption and drive greater productivity. Microsoft also announced more cloud deployment options and management capabilities. Between now and October, Microsoft’s guidance on which cloud options make the most sense for whom would help both partners and customers.

Sept. 01, 2013

Nucleus Research

Nucleus Research has positioned Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the Leaders Quadrant of the Nucleus Research CRM Technology Value Matrix for H2 2013 based on its usability and functionality.

Aug. 09, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Microsoft receives an overall ‘Positive’ rating in the latest Vendor Rating report published on August 8, 2013. Gartner Vendor Ratings assess all the different aspects of a technology provider, such as its strategy, organization, products, technology, marketing, financials and support. Gartner evaluated Microsoft in 37 different subcategories covering the entire scope of Microsoft’s business.

Aug. 01, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner’s evaluation placed Microsoft in the Leaders Quadrant. Gartner notes “UC offers the ability to significantly improve how individuals, groups and companies interact and perform.”

July 17, 2013

Gartner, Inc., Robert P. Desisto & Patrick Stakenas

Gartner has positioned Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation based on its completeness of vision and ability to execute.

July 10, 2013

InfoTrack (T3i)

This report compares survey results of IT & Business leaders involved with Microsoft Lync between this year and last. The report found only 7% of Enterprises surveyed had “no plans” to deploy Microsoft Lync for Enterprise voice, compared to 21% one year ago. 76% of surveyed enterprises stated their Microsoft Lync trials include Enterprise Voice. More than half of enterprises surveyed had either begun to deploy Lync EV or planned to do so. Finally, one quarter of enterprises surveyed listed Microsoft as their preferred vendor for IP-PBXs.

July 03, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Secure Email Gateways. According to Gartner, the secure email gateway market is mature and buyers should focus on strategic vendors, data loss prevention capability encryption and better protection from targeted phishing attacks. In the report, Gartner evaluates 16 SEG solutions vendors.

June 14, 2013

Forrester Research, Inc., John R. Rymer and James Staten

Public cloud platforms are the keys that unlock the flexibility, productivity, and economic advantages of cloud computing. Application development and delivery (AD&D) pros use a wide variety of public cloud platforms, and this Forrester Wave™ evaluates the leading providers of these choices. Public cloud platforms take several forms, including basic infrastructure-as-a-service platforms as well as either full or partial platform services and tools. Each of these types of platforms is best suited to a distinct type of AD&D pro. In Forrester’s 19-criteria evaluation of public cloud vendors, it identified the 14 most significant public cloud platform providers for large enterprises — Amazon Web Services (AWS), CloudBees, Cordys, Engine Yard, GoGrid, Google, IBM, Mendix, Microsoft (Windows Azure), MioSoft, Rackspace, salesforce.com, SoftLayer, and Verizon Terremark. This report details how well each vendor fulfills Forrester criteria and where each stands in relation to its competitors for the three major categories of AD&D professionals to help developers select the right partner for their public cloud deployments.

April 27, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

In February 2013, Microsoft moved its Office 365 cloud platform from the 2010 wave of Office products to the 2013 wave, initiating a different release cycle for cloud and on-premises versions. In this report, Gartner examines the implications for IT leaders and the future of Office 365.

April 26, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Search. According to Gartner, the enterprise search market is being reshaped by new consumer experiences and shifts in vendors’ strategies. Gartner compares 15 vendors to help search managers and information architects make the right choice.

April 09, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for Client Management Tools. According to Gartner, the client management tool market is maturing and evolving to adapt to consumerization, desktop virtualization, and an ongoing need to improve efficiency and lower PC total cost of ownership. These tools will continue to broaden their support of client platforms and application delivery models.

April 03, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

This Gartner report discusses how “preference of smartphones for business and personal use, coupled with mobile clients from unified communications suppliers, enables office users to manage communications with their mobile phones in place of a desk phone. IT leaders must plan for a seamless transition.” The report provides recommendations on how to proceed.

Feb. 07, 2013

Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester Research positioned Microsoft Dynamics for Retail as a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Point Of Service, Q2 2012. Forrester Research evaluated 11 significant solution providers offering point of service solutions. This report details their findings on how each vendor measures up and plots where they stand in relation to each other to help application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals select the right solution for their needs in implementing large-scale point-of-service systems.

Feb. 05, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Once again, Gartner has positioned Microsoft in the Leaders Quadrant in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms, based on its completeness of vision and ability to execute in the BI and analytics market. The market for BI and analytics platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets, with a compound annual growth rate of 7% through 2016. Gartner also predicts that the emerging data-as-a-service trend could significantly grow the market for BI and analytics platforms.

Jan. 31, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Once again, Gartner has positioned Microsoft in the Leaders Quadrant in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems, based on its completeness of vision and ability to execute in the data warehouse DBMS market. The data warehouse DBMS market is transforming due to the rise of “big data” and logical data warehouses. Gartner expects the DBMS market to have grown by about 10% in 2012, despite the troubled economic situation. This underlines the investment organizations are making in information management technologies.

Jan. 30, 2013

Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester Research provides an overview of the new Office. In this independent report, Forrester analysts focus on how Microsoft addresses the important areas of mobile, social, and cloud to maintain its dominant position in enterprise knowledge worker technology.

Jan. 03, 2013

Gartner, Inc.

Gartner’s 2013 manufacturing agenda explores topics such as innovation and discovery, creating organizational agility, reaching customers through marketing and sales, product life cycle management, and engagement with consumers and channels. Their planned research for 2013 will feature extensions for life sciences, consumer goods and automotive industries, as well as address issues common to many manufacturing sectors. Their research will be driven by the most impactful trends and forces driving manufacturing, and the more detailed subsectors that are covered.

2012

Nov. 08, 2012

Gartner, Inc.

In this report, Gartner notes that Microsoft is shipping the 2013 versions of Exchange and Outlook at a time of tumultuous industry change. The decision to upgrade to the new releases is complicated by the option to move email to the cloud.

Nov. 08, 2012

Forrester Research

Forrester Research, Inc. has positioned Microsoft as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Cloud Databases, Q4 2012; Microsoft received the highest scores of any vendor in Current Offering and Market Presence. Forrester notes that “cloud database offerings represent a new space within the broader data management platform market, providing enterprises with an abstracted option to support Agile development and new social, mobile, cloud, and eCommerce applications as well as lower IT costs.” While it estimates the public cloud database market at $400 million today, Forrester predicts that it will grow to $1.2 billion by 2017.

Oct. 05, 2012

Gartner Research

Gartner reviews the new Lync, both on prem and Online, and discusses the enhancements including HD multiparty video, mobile and Web clients, persistent group chat, and greater integration with Skype, Windows 8 and Office 2013.

Sept. 20, 2012

Gartner Inc.

Gartner positions Microsoft in the Leaders Quadrant in the 2012 Horizontal Portals Magic Quadrant. Gartner defines a portal as “a Web software infrastructure that provides interaction with relevant information assets (for example, information/content, applications and business processes), knowledge assets and human assets by select targeted audiences, delivered in a highly personalized manner.”

Aug. 01, 2012

Directions on Microsoft

The research report details how Windows Azure can help ISVs realize increased flexibility for developing and delivering their solutions (scalability, manageability, geographic distribution, and replication). Windows Azure could also result in lower costs for ISVs versus running an application on Amazon EC2 or similar hosts.

June 30, 2012

Constellation Research

This trends report addresses several questions commonly asked by enterprises: How quickly will I be able to move elements of my technology infrastructure to the cloud to address innovation? What steps will I need to take to leverage the cloud to my advantage? Can I achieve business value through Hybrid IT approaches? How do the four personas of the next generation CIO and Hybrid IT work with each other? Constellation Research goes on to recommend five guiding principles in the journey toward Hybrid IT: balanced governance; change management; business level integration; security; and enterprise flexibility and choice. Organizations can expect Hybrid IT models to play a key role in the strategy of innovative businesses that must deliver value, profitability and market differentiation.

June 27, 2012

Forrester Research

Forrester Research positioned Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave(tm): Point Of Service, Q2 2012. Forrester Research evaluated 10 significant solution providers offering point of service solutions. This report details their findings on how each vendor measures up and plots where they stand in relation to each other to help application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals select the right solution for their needs in implementing large-scale point-of-service systems.

May 01, 2012

Nucleus Research

Nucleus Research has positioned Microsoft Dynamics AX in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2012 Nucleus Research Technology Value Matrix for Enterprise Applications based on its usability and functionality.

March 01, 2012

Nucleus Research

Adding mobile access and social collaboration to CRM delivers significant benefits. In a survey of CRM decision makers, Nucleus found that providing sales people with mobile device access to CRM drives a 14.6 percent productivity increase, and adding social drives an additional 11.8 percent productivity boost. Given the significant ROI opportunity, all organizations should consider mobile and social CRM adoption.

Feb. 01, 2012

Nucleus Research

Microsoft’s latest version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, nicknamed “CRM Anywhere,” expands mobile and browser access. This is significant for two reasons: first, it shows Microsoft’s recognition that there is a world beyond Redmond-sourced software. Second, given the dramatic productivity benefits of mobile access, this change promises an incremental increase in return for Dynamics CRM customers. From a return on investment point of view, Nucleus considers this release one of the most significant we’ve seen from Dynamics CRM in some time.

Feb. 01, 2012

Nucleus Research

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has always ranked high in usability because of its Microsoft Outlook and Office integration, personalization, and role-based views. Microsoft’s online application marketplace has gained traction, providing customers with more ready access to CRM add-on capabilities that can drive greater value. The Microsoft Dynamics Q4 2011 service update, which was recently made available, includes new social collaboration capabilities such as support for activity feeds, microblogging, conversations, and automated activity updates − all features that will likely improve Microsoft’s position from a functionality perspective in future Matrices.

Jan. 18, 2012

IDC

Mary Turner and Al Gillen report, “Microsoft announced it had delivered the Release Candidate version of System Center 2012, which the firm described as being optimized to build and manage application-focused private clouds. Microsoft also introduced a new System Center licensing model that aggressively simplifies pricing with the goal of making System Center 2012 the most affordable full-functioning private cloud management platform in the market.”

2011

Nov. 01, 2011

Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester Research Inc., a leading independent research firm, recognized Microsoft SharePoint as a Leader in two technology areas in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Content Management, Q4 2011. According to Forrester, “SharePoint 2010 continues to grow in popularity, thanks to its blend of collaboration and content management support. SharePoint 2010’s ECM capabilities are much improved from the 2007 release, and Microsoft has focused on empowering the worker by delivering a better enterprise-ready solution.”

April 21, 2011

Forrester Research, Inc.

A lot of tech vendors — and channel partners — are struggling to define channel partner roles in the cloud services demand chain. On-premise technology variants are starting to lose traction in segments served mainly by channel partners, putting large numbers of channel partners — whose bread and butter is selling installations — at risk. In the software sector, that service provider is typically the software vendor. But not always — hosting service providers, or hosters, new types of partners dedicated to providing hosting services — now abound. And with advancements in hosting technology and hosters’ business models, application hosters are a major threat to those vendors that cling to the old school notion that channel partners are nothing more than resellers.

Feb. 11, 2012

451 Group

The 451 Group assesses that “SQL Azure is a clear indication that Microsoft is prepared to listen to and respond to the demands of customers in providing a fully managed relational, scalable database service.”

Feb. 10, 2011

Forrester Research, Inc.

Microsoft has launched cost-effective EDW appliances for midmarket and large enterprises. With an increased focus on massively parallel EDW scale-out, Microsoft positions its EDW offerings as the foundation for self-service BI for information workers who rely on SQL Server.

2010

Dec. 01, 2010

IDC

The report evaluates principal vendor participants in the IT project portfolio management (IT PPM) market. Microsoft is a “Leader” in the ALM and IT PPM Market View. The excerpt also includes enterprise IT PPM, where Microsoft is a “Major Player,” entering the “Leaders” section.

June 16, 2010

Forrester Research

In Forrester’s 112-criteria evaluation of order management hub (OMH) vendors, Oracle E-Business Suite and Sterling Commerce led the pack among the Leaders because of their ability to support both end-to-end ordering processes as well as order hub infrastructure. Meanwhile, SAP, Oracle Siebel, and Microsoft earned their Leader designations because of their strong support for end-to-end order management processes and forward-looking product strategies.

Jan. 27, 2010

Forrester Research, Inc.

According to this independent report, Forrester analysts believe “Microsoft’s recent release of Exchange Server 2010 has material benefits that should prompt some Exchange 2007 and many Exchange 2003 customers to consider an upgrade. Look for improvements in three areas: back-end improvements largely connected to storage; benefits to information workers; and built-in basic archiving capabilities.”

Disclaimer:
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.