The 451 Group has delivered a series of in-depth 451 Special Reports on some of the most exciting and closely watched emerging information technology markets.

These reports provide a total roundup of developments, extensive profiles of both major and emerging players, and informed analysis of likely future developments. They provide both the background and the insight to allow vendors, end users and potential investors to make informed decisions about these emerging markets.

Reports are delivered as a premium product, and are available at a substantial discount to clients of The 451 Group.

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JUST RELEASED -- Building a case for the mobile enterprise laptop as a permanent desktop replacement (Jan 2006)

The 451 Group believes that a number of simultaneous enterprise IT industry trends point to a major shift away from the desktop-bound worker toward a fully wireless and always-connected mobile knowledge worker. Mobile-enabled laptops are becoming cheaper, wireless networks are becoming faster and more ubiquitous, and the suite of software needed to securely connect the mobile worker with the office, on the go, is rapidly solidifying. This 451 Special Report will map out how vendors in the new mobile enterprise value chain are likely to find success within this emerging (and rapidly growing) market opportunity – in many cases, serving as a disruptive force in the way emerging mobile-enabled enterprises will operate over the next 18-36 months.

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Cashing in on open source software (Dec 2005)

The 451 Group believes that enterprise software vendors can no longer afford to ignore open source. It is a powerful force of change with both upside and downside potential. In the worst-case scenario, open source can do severe damage – to licensing schemes and to legal definitions of intellectual property – if used improperly. The potential benefits, however, are also massive – making it important to clearly understand the critical path to finding upside in the commercial adoption of open source.

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Text-aware applications: the endgame for unstructured data analysis (Jul 2005)

The 451 Group believes that enabling text-aware application intelligence is a key forthcoming battleground for software vendors in a variety of market segments. These vendors include those that explicitly focus on unstructured data analysis as well as search, database, business intelligence and business application suite vendors. This 451 Special Report points to how the dominant application vendors, particularly those that supply business intelligence and customer-facing applications, are facing a critical period of opportunity and competition.

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Speech technology market: Hanging up on growth? (Feb 2005)

The 451 Group believes the speech technology market is at a key turning point, where fundamental changes – both in terms of the value proposition and the horizontal technology stack – must occur in the marketplace if future growth is to be supported. This 451 Special Report, by presenting and analyzing three potential scenarios for marketplace direction, provides insight into the competitive opportunities and challenges for vendor companies within speech technologies, as well as the subsequent positioning, investment opportunities and marketplace M&A that will ensue.

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Storage virtualization, take two: A foundation for smart storage emerges (Dec 2004)

The 451 Group, which produced a 451 Special Report on the first wave of storage virtualization in 2001, now believes the second wave of virtualization is carrying the storage industry. Unlike the first wave, which was focused on simple block-level virtualization, there is more substance and sustainability than hype this time around. This 451 Special Report identifies the most compelling segments of technology development and competition in the second wave of storage virtualization, and provides competitive assessments of key vendors within these segments.

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When worlds collide: the convergence of network and application management (Aug 2004)

The 451 Group believes that the next 18 months will see a rapid convergence of application and network management technologies – leading to $3-4bn in M&A activity over that period as the network and systems management framework vendors move into monitoring applications. This 451 Special Report, identifies the most compelling segments of convergence activity and provides competitive assessments of a cross section of key vendors within these segments.

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ILM: A strategic opportunity for storage vendors? (May 2004)

The 451 Group believes that 2004 will be a key development year for enterprise IT products and services built around information lifecycle management (ILM) technologies. This 451 Special Report focuses on the competitive opportunities and challenges for vendor companies within ILM, as well as the subsequent positioning, investment opportunities and marketplace M&A that will ensue.

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2004-2005 Outlook for enterprise mobile vendors: Many have survived, but who will prosper? (Jan 2004)

This 451 Special Report tackles the issue of what happened to the enterprise mobile revolution. It highlights the next 18 months as a critical partnering and acquisition period for vendors and shows how enterprise mobile-related M&A is set to grow beyond the $83m reported for 2003.

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Grids 2004: from rocket science to business service (Oct 2003)

The next 18 months will be a critical period of market development for grid computing technologies. Over this period, the commercial viability of the technology will mature and early-adopter customers will give way to broader adaptation of grids for enterprise applications both at single-site and multisite installations. The nature of competition will also mature as vendors integrate grid computing technologies into existing offerings and strategies ranging from utility computing to Web services.

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CRM Analytics: Have the BI vendors missed the boat? (Jul 2003)

The 451 Group believes there is a fundamental marketplace synapse in the arena of CRM analytics — with supply and demand factors fundamentally out of sync. Some of the greatest culprits are the business intelligence (BI) vendors, which have been happy to provide analytics that are well behind the best of breed; meanwhile, the best-of-breed suppliers are typically too small and require too much integration to really succeed.

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Storage security market: emerging opportunities, unseen threats (May 2003)

Enterprise storage used to exist in a relatively fixed, centralized and controlled environment where physical security, access controls and known administrative entities satisfied requirements for management due diligence. The rise of networked storage has left the security industry behind.

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The mobile data opportunity: Will the IT titans win out? (Apr 2003)

The move from voice-centric mobile devices with some data capabilities to data-centric devices with voice integration is under way. This market transition represents a major opportunity for the large software players to utilize their knowledge of the data application market and extend their power and influence into a new generation of mobile data services.

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Unstructured data management: the elephant in the corner (Oct 2002)

Managing unstructured data is a problem that has been around for as long as people have been using computers to write letters and send email. But many companies may not be aware that they even have a problem, or may think it is an insurmountable one. Unstructured data is four times larger in volume than structured data, yet little effort is spent in managing and analyzing it. The 451 Group is pleased to announce the publication of the first extensive report on the UDM market. The report provides a comprehensive view of the market and its future direction, including strategic assessments of competitors - the major players, new market entrants, a group of players to watch and future market development.

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Storage resource management (Aug 2002)

Even in the face of declining IT budgets, storage expenditure is increasing. The cost of storage management is far outstripping the storage hardware element. The ultimate aim is to treat storage as a utility - and storage resource management (SRM) is the first step toward this. The 451 Group defines and segments this market, providing analysis of the main companies and leading startups, and offers SWOT analysis and a look at future developments for each segment. The report provides actionable conclusions for companies, from whichever part of the value chain, to be winners in this market.

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Herding Cats: managing distributed applications (May 2002)

No one has really begun to evaluate the competitive landscape or potential in the fragmented market for managing distributed applications. Over the past few months, a new breed of software and application management startups has emerged to target this market. Meanwhile, more established players are shifting their strategies and extending existing software technologies.

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The SOAP bubble: a Web services taxonomy (Feb 2002)

No one in the IT industry doubts the importance of Web services, but no one is too sure what they really are, or how they will impact existing services. The 451 Group has produced a taxonomy of the market, something we believe has yet to be provided by an independent analyst firm. We also analyze in depth what companies are actually offering, and are planning to offer, as Web services.

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MHP: Who will televise the Java revolution? (Jan 2002)

US cable operators plan to adopt the interactive television platform standard, DVB MHP. This dramatic news for the cable and interactive television markets could provide a great jump start to the industry. And while it is a significant endorsement of Java, it is also a major headache for Microsoft and others who have supported alternate technologies for the iTV market.

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Blade servers: Thin is in (Dec 2001)

The server industry stands on the threshold of a major architectural shift. Blade server companies, strongly funded by Wall Street, are taking advantage of the inadequacies of current server designs with a new approach that poses a real threat to the industry giants. The more farsighted of the major IT vendors are making blade servers a centerpiece of their strategy for 2002.

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Storage virtualization (Sep 2001)

Storage virtualization is one of the hottest areas in IT today. While investors have spurned most of the technology market, they have continued to invest heavily in this segment. Why? The need for storage is rising exponentially, and storage virtualization allows users to cut costs and increase flexibility. Put simply, storage virtualization separates the representation of storage to the server operating system from actual physical storage.

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