Communications/Wireless Technology
Our communications group looks at many aspects of the telecom market including network equipment, services, specialty components, and hardware/devices with a particular focus on wireless technology. We provide in-depth coverage, running the full wireless gamut from carrier services to handsets/devices that hook subscribers to the network and to the supply chains of the internal groups and external partners that manufacture equipment.

Consumer Computing and Gaming
We have recently added coverage outside the enterprise that is focused on the consumer side of the market. Our consumer-computing group tracks consumer demand trends and buying patterns in the market for PCs, related peripherals, and consumer electronics. The group looks primarily at the major electronics retailers, PC OEMs, and distributors in an effort to gauge the trends in the public marketplace. Beyond hard goods, we also incorporate our coverage of gaming hardware and software into this group as demand here is also consumer-driven. In addition, we leverage relationships with a number of third-party distribution contacts to help us monitor the pulse of this market.

Enterprise Software
Our software team monitors the activities of the one-third of corporate IT budgets that go to software within the enterprise data center. From systems management and security to business intelligence and enterprise applications, we approach the software market by looking for early trends and indications of success, failure, risk, and prosperity from a number of alternative sources. As is usually the case with our research, we prefer to track down resellers and integrators and speak directly with the sales force instead of taking management’s word as to what is taking place in the market.

Manufacturing Services
Running perpendicular to many of our vertical focus areas, we recently added broad coverage of outsourced manufacturing, which in many cases ties directly to other segments we monitor. We are investing in the buildout of an extensive information network of contacts in this area that can help us better understand early shifts in technology and demand that impact both the OEMs for which outsourcers build product as well as the suppliers of semiconductors and components into the production process. As the production base fragments geographically and the tendency to outsource nonstrategic manufacturing continues to build, we view this as a critically important area, flush with information.

Semiconductor Production & Equipment
Our semiconductor production team monitors and tracks activity in the world of semiconductor manufacturing--from output levels at integrated device manufacturers and foundries to technology transitions and changes in the production base that impact the trajectory of the production equipment market. Our wide network of contacts includes process engineers and production managers in the fabs; key suppliers of consumables that support production; providers of critical components and subsystems to the equipment makers; and high-level contacts at the equipment makers to build an up-to-date view of the production base and its activity.

Semiconductors
Extending beyond our view into the production base, the other half of our semiconductor team monitors activity in the market for semiconductors--from processors to diodes. Our semiconductor analysts in the U.S. and Asia leverage a network of industry contacts built through the team’s combined industry experience of more than 50 years in the semiconductor market. We track demand trends and competitive success and failure of the market and its participants through procurement managers, engineers, sales and marketing professionals, external representatives, distributors, and others who live and die with the ups and downs of the semiconductor market.