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Enterprise SaaS Vendors Accelerating Shift to Cloud Application Platforms

Jason Bremner, Jennifer Thomson — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The enterprise SaaS market is undergoing a vendor-driven transformation toward cloud application platforms, reshaping services delivery models and competitive dynamics.

This shift also introduces new risks, including increased vendor dependency, compressed transformation timelines, and growing complexity in governing AI-driven operations across multiple platforms.

The rise of agentic AI further reinforces this transition, introducing new models of interaction and orchestration across SaaS platforms. "Providers that adapt their operating models, invest in AI and proprietary assets, and align with outcome-based delivery will be best positioned to succeed in this evolving landscape," says Jennifer Thomson, associate VP, global services insights, IDC.

IDC Market Glance: Cloud Data Logistics and Protection, 1Q26

Johnny Yu — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance provides an overview of the cloud data logistics and protection ecosystem, highlighting the core markets that organizations rely on to preserve, protect, and recover data across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. The ecosystem is anchored by data protection software and also includes purpose-built backup appliances (PBBA), magnetic tape, and data protection as a service (DPaaS), with DPaaS spanning backup as a service (BaaS), disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), cyber-recovery as a service (CRaaS), and archive as a service (AaaS). Together, these segments show how the market is structured across software, integrated systems, and cloud-delivered services.

The market is increasingly being organized around integrated protection and recovery architectures as organizations look to simplify operations, improve recovery assurance, and strengthen cyber-resilience. In addition to traditional backup and replication, buyers are increasingly prioritizing capabilities such as immutability, isolated recovery, forensic analysis, and orchestrated recovery workflows. This document highlights vendors participating across these segments and reflects a market that continues to evolve toward cloud-delivered protection, broader recovery services, and more tightly linked protection and resilience strategies.

SaaS and Agent Path 2026: Worldwide Banner Book

Nadia Ballard, Mickey North Rizza, Eric Newmark, Frank Della Rosa — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Pivot Table banner book includes data for IDC's SaaS and Agent Path 2026 program, which provides comprehensive data and guidance on the mind and journey of the SaaS and AI agents buyer, including a deep dive into 22 functional application markets: accounts payable (AP); accounts receivable (AR); collaboration applications; contract life-cycle management (CLM); core HR; asset life-cycle management (ALM/EAM); employee experience; enterprise resource planning (ERP); facility management; finance; learning experience management (LXM); payroll; procurement; product life-cycle management/computer-aided design (PLM/CAD); professional services automation (PSA); supply chain management (SCM); subscription management; talent acquisition; talent management; tax management; travel and expense management (T&E); and treasury and risk management.

Coverage includes application adoption, deployment models, budget plans and replacement cycle timing, purchasing preferences and attitudes toward SaaS buying channels, packaging and pricing options, and in-depth vendor reviews, ratings, and spend and advocacy scores for all 22 functional application markets.

Google Cloud Next 2026: Building the Agentic Enterprise

Matthew Eastwood, Dave McCarthy — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At Google Cloud Next '26, Thomas Kurian delivered Google Cloud's most integrated and enterprise-credible AI story to date. Building on last year's agentic enterprise vision, Google returned with a more production-oriented model spanning AI infrastructure, Gemini-centered agent platforms, data modernization, security, productivity, and ecosystem execution. Key announcements included eighth-generation TPUs for training and inference, the Virgo Network fabric, Gemini Enterprise, the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, Agentic Data Cloud, deeper Wiz integration, and new Workspace intelligence capabilities. Google also introduced a $750 million partner fund and highlighted commitments from Accenture, Deloitte, McKinsey, BCG, Salesforce, and SAP. Customer examples from Merck, GE Appliances, NASA, Home Depot, Macy's, Vodafone, and Virgin Voyages showed momentum beyond digital natives. From IDC's perspective, Next '26 signaled a shift from AI-native vision to a more complete enterprise operating model.

Japan IT Infrastructure Services Forecast by Service Type and Infrastructure Type, 2026–2030

Mimei Ito — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides the market forecast for the Japan IT infrastructure services market as of February 2026.

The market size is broken down by customer type, service type, and infrastructure type, providing a quantitative market forecast through 2030 and analyzing the factors driving market expansion or contraction.

"Investment in IT infrastructure optimization and the expansion of AI infrastructure deployment will drive the growth of the IT infrastructure services market," says Mimei Ito, research manager for Software, Services, and IT Spending at IDC Japan.

This is the English translation of the Japanese document (IDC #JPJ53501326).

IDC Survey Spotlight: Which Platform Capabilities Are SaaS Providers Prioritizing to Support Growth?

Frank Della Rosa — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

In this IDC Spotlight, IDC examines why SaaS business models are pivoting from standalone applications toward integrated, AI-enabled platform ecosystems, in which AI orchestration is becoming table stakes across higher-growth tiers. The strategic direction is toward cohesive platforms that unify AI, data, and vertical context, rather than isolated features or disconnected products. This shift underscores a maturation in platform strategy execution: the new growth engine for SaaS is the ability to coordinate AI and data across an ecosystem, aligning product portfolios around common platform capabilities that support both horizontal scale and deep industry relevance.

IDC Survey: Inside EMEA Manufacturing’s Cloud Journey — Maturity, AI Use, Security, and Legacy Migration, Part 2

Gunjan Bassi, Sarah Lee — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey explores how EMEA manufacturers are developing their cloud and AI strategies to improve efficiency, compliance, and innovation.

Part 1 looks at what manufacturers expect from cloud adoption, the outcomes they want, and why they choose public, private, hybrid, or edge environments. It also highlights how they are using cloud as a foundation for AI, the mix of ready-made versus custom AI solutions, and the organizational challenges of aligning cloud and AI.

Part 2 examines the main obstacles to AI cloud adoption, including skills gaps, technology limitations, security concerns, and legacy modernization issues. It also reviews manufacturers’ cloud security approaches, migration and modernization plans, and how they are building secure, scalable cloud environments to support AI-driven transformation.

Together, the two parts offer practical insights for tech vendors looking to help EMEA manufacturers move toward integrated, future-ready cloud and AI architectures.

Google Cloud Next '26 Infrastructure and the Rise of the Agentic Era

Dave McCarthy, Jasdeep Singh — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Google Cloud has unveiled a sweeping progression of its AI infrastructure at Next '26, signaling a definitive shift from the generative AI era to the agentic AI era. The core of this announcement is the evolution of AI infrastructure from a fragmented collection of components into a unified, vertically integrated "agent-native engine."

Google's strategy centers on the AI Hypercomputer, an integrated stack encompassing custom silicon, mega-scale networking, and open software frameworks. The most significant development is the bifurcation of its eighth-generation TPUs into two specialized chips: the TPU 8t for massive-scale training and the TPU 8i for low-latency reasoning and inference. This specialization, combined with the new Virgo Network fabric and Axion-powered host systems, aims to address the specific operational intensities of autonomous agents that must reason, plan, and execute in continuous loops.

By owning the full stack (from the liquid-cooled datacenter architecture to the software kernels), Google is positioning itself as a key architect for enterprises moving toward swarms of collaborative AI agents.

IDC’s Worldwide Enterprise Network Infrastructure Taxonomy, 2026

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides a detailed description of IDC’s enterprise network infrastructure (ENI) taxonomy. It serves as the foundation for classification, segmentation, and sizing of the worldwide enterprise network infrastructure and services market. The taxonomy encompasses the products, technologies, and services used to build, operate, and support enterprise and service provider networks across key domains, including datacenter, campus, branch, edge, and cloud environments.

The ENI taxonomy organizes the market into four primary segments — network hardware/equipment, network software, network cloud services, and network life-cycle services — each further divided into secondary markets covering key technologies such as switching, routing and SD-WAN, WLAN, network management software, network cloud services, and network life-cycle services.

This structure provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing how networks are designed, deployed, managed, and consumed, while underpinning IDC’s network infrastructure research and data products and enabling consistent market definitions, vendor performance analysis, and tracking of technology adoption and global market trends.

“IDC’s enterprise network infrastructure taxonomy provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how modern networks are evolving across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. As enterprises increasingly prioritize automation, security, and cloud-driven architectures, this taxonomy serves as the foundation for tracking market transformation and vendor innovation across the networking ecosystem,” states Brandon Butler, senior research manager, Network Infrastructure and Services at IDC.

IDC Survey Spotlight: What Is the State of Agentic AI Integration in Industry Clouds?

Nadia Ballard — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines the state of agentic AI integration in industry clouds and vertical SaaS and finds that embedded AI is becoming the dominant model for industry-specific work. The results highlight a clear opportunity for technology suppliers to gain a competitive edge through more embedded, domain-specific, and compliance-ready AI capabilities.