IDC MarketScape Report Evaluates IT Education and Training Offerings of Leading Vendors Worldwide

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--International Data Corporation (IDC) today released a new MarketScape report profiling and ranking the leading providers in the worldwide IT education and training market. This analysis revealed that vendors are universally strong at integrating a variety of delivery options in their portfolio, but on the other side of the spectrum, few vendors are in a position to be credible advisors to IT departments on staffing, skill requirements, and best practices for IT organizational management.

“Overall, vendors are weakest at measuring the impact of training on the enterprise, making it difficult to effectively describe the opportunity cost of spending a dollar on training as opposed to some other essential need.”

In this IDC MarketScape for the worldwide education and training market, Cisco, HP, IBM, Red Hat, and SAP were positioned in the Market Leaders category.

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis reports utilize a rigorous scoring methodology that produces a definitive assessment of each vendor's current market capabilities and strategies for competing in the future. There are several criteria that are most influential in predicting success in the IT education and training market that vendors in this research were scored against:

Training offering: Having a broad range of educational services where the training content is available as early as possible to support early customer adoption.
Training delivery: A full suite of elearning including labs, games, EPSS, and v-ILT is leveraged. Content is fully searchable from the vendor site and exposed to external search engines.
Segmented messaging strategy: Company education marketing includes separate value propositions for partners, client project teams, end users, and even the academic community. The unifying message must focus on the impact IT professional skill has on maximizing the value of technology investment.
Strategy/pricing model: Pricing of training for partners encourages dedication and commitment to completion and rewards partners for certification achievement by reimbursing training and certification costs.
Learning service strategy: Learning services strategy is focused on ensuring organizational capability by aligning organizational development services to the operational life cycle of the client.

"Education customers can be confident that their technology vendors are providing very good instruction in formats that are consistently improving," said Cushing Anderson, program vice president, IT Education and Training Services research. "Overall, vendors are weakest at measuring the impact of training on the enterprise, making it difficult to effectively describe the opportunity cost of spending a dollar on training as opposed to some other essential need."

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IT Education and Training 2012 Vendor Analysis (IDC #232870), evaluates the offerings and prospects of the following vendors' relative capabilities: CA Technologies, Cisco, Citrix, HP, IBM, Lawson, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP, and Symantec. This research is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor's success in the market. This study assesses key technology vendors participating in the IT education market as a line of business (LOB) to support the sale of their technologies.

About IDC MarketScape

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

For more information about IDC MarketScape reports, please contact Karen Moser at kmoser@idc.com.

About IDC

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 100 countries. For more than 47 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.