One of the most common questions I get from students is where they can find free cloud computing and enterprise software research.
Few if any of my students work for companies who have subscriptions with the top analyst firms however. A small group of students are working on a start-up on the side and want to absorb as much market data as they can.
Many of my former students are also in IT management roles, and when they become interested in a specific cloud computing or enterprise topic over time, they write me and ask if I have any data on their subject of interest. I keep the following list updated from them too. To serve all these students I’ve been adding to the list shown below for a number of years. None of these companies are current or past clients and I hold no equity positions in any of them.
The requests are so prevalent in global competitive strategy courses I distribute this list at the beginning of the semester with the following disclaimers.
- Many of the cloud computing and enterprise software companies pay to have white papers written and research done. Writing white papers and doing research for an enterprise software vendor client is a very lucrative business for many industry analyst firms. Ethical industry analysts will often insist that a disclaimer be included in the white paper and on the website stating that they and their firms were hired to write the paper or do the research and publish the report.
- The reports are intellectual property of the firms publishing them. Enterprise software vendors often pay tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum for reprint rights and the right to provide them on their websites. I advise my students to seek out the copyright and quote policies of the research firm of interest if they plan on re-using the graphics in any published materials or in their blog posts. One for example, the Gartner Copyright and Quote Policy is shown here.
- Pay attention to the methodologies used in each report and realize they change over time. This is especially the case with the Gartner Magic Quadrant and MarketScopes. Gartner has been very active this year in refining the Magic Quadrant methodology for example.
The following are the list of cloud computing and enterprise software vendor sites that offer free downloads of cloud computing and enterprise software research:
- Amazon Web Services – Amazon has purchased re-print rights to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service written by Lydia Leong, Douglas Toombs, Bob Gill, Gregor Petri, Tiny Haynes published on August, 19, 2013 in addition to the latest reports from Forrester on enterprise public cloud platforms and enterprise cloud databases. Link: https://aws.amazon.com/resources/analyst-reports/
- BMC Software – Many free reports from Gartner, Forrester, The 451 Group and other research firms covering advanced performance analytics (APA), cloud computing, IT Service Management and long-term technology trends. Link: http://www.bmc.com/industry-analysts/reports/
- Computer Associates – An extensive collection of cloud computing and enterprise software research organized into the following categories: cloud; data management; energy and sustainability management; IT automation; IT security; IT service management; mainframe; project and portfolio management; service assurance and virtual organizations. CA requires opt-in on the latest research as they use this site as part of their lead generation strategy. Link: http://www.ca.com/us/collateral/industry-analyst-reports.aspx
- Cisco Systems - Data Center and Virtualization; includes the latest Current Analysis, Forrester, Gartner, IDC, Lippis and Yankee Group research reports covering Big Data, blade servers, cloud computing, Hadoop, unified data centers and many other topics. Be sure to click across the Computing, Network, Orchestration/Automation, and Network Services tabs to find additional research: Link: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/ns340/ns857/ns156/ns1094/analyst_reports.html
- Hewlett-Packard – HP has invested primarily in networking-related analyst research including the latest studies and market frameworks from Forrester, Gartner, IDC and Infonetics Research. Link: http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/networking/ar/index.aspx#.Uhp-ERufg-J
- Intel – Organized around the topic of designing a data center for the cloud, Intel is providing a series of research studies, reports, white papers and videos that provide insights into virtualization, networking, mobility and Intel-based servers running cloud architectures. Link: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-analyst-reports.html
- Microsoft – Balancing the need to support their enterprise applications today and create demand for cloud-based initiatives now and in the future, Microsoft’s series of analyst reports reflect their evolving business model. Microsoft has licensed the latest research from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESDG), Forrester, Gartner, IDC, Ovum, Yankee Group and others listed on this site. Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/itanalyst/
- Oracle - The most comprehensive collection of industry analyst research online for any enterprise software vendor, Oracle has hundreds of research reports available for viewing under their reprint licenses for free, and also for download. The reports are organized into corporate, infrastructure, systems, services, solutions, industries, enterprise applications and regions. Link: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/analystreports/index.html
- Progress Software – Extensive collection of research from Bloor, Forrester, Gartner, IDC, Tabb Group, Ovum and other research firms are available for download from this site. Link: http://www.progress.com/en/inthenews/analyst-reports.html
- SAS – The most extensive and well-organized online collection of analyst research on analytics and business intelligence (BI) available, SAS makes research available from fifteen analyst firms across six industries on this area of their website. You can find the SAS Analyst Viewpoints section of their website here: http://www.sas.com/news/analysts/
- Symantec – Provides downloadable analyst reports in the areas of risk and compliance, endpoint security and management, information and identity protection, messaging security, backup and archiving, storage and availability management, services and emerging trends. ESG, Info-Tech Research Group, Forrester, Gartner and IDC reports are on this page for download. Link: http://www.symantec.com/about/industryanalysts/analystreports.jsp
- Teradata – Extensive collection of industry analysis and research organized into the sections of Active Data Warehousing, Active Enterprise Intelligence, Enterprise Data Warehousing, Teradata Analytical Ecosystem and Teradata Integration Analytics. The latest market frameworks from Gartner, Forrester, IDC and other research firms are available for download. Link: http://www.teradata.com/analyst-reports/
Filed under: Amazon Web Services, Cloud Computing, Louis Columbus' blog, SaaS Forecasts Tagged: Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Cloud Computing, cloud computing landscape, Enterprise Resource Planning, enterprise software companies, enterprise software vendor, enterprise software vendors, ERP, Forrester Research, HP, IDC SaaS Forecasts, Intel, Louis Columbus' blog, Microsoft, Oracle, Progress Software, SAP, SAS, Selling SaaS Applications, software, Software-as-a-Service, Symantec, technology 
