This IDC study starts IDC's annual "predictions season" with a wide-angle look at the most strategic trends and events for 2013. The most important trends and events in 2013 will cluster around what IDC calls the "3rd Platform" for IT industry growth and innovation — built on mobile devices, cloud services, social technologies, and Big Data, as well as the emerging high-value industry solutions built on top of them, and the rising vendors (e.g., service providers and industry PaaS providers) and customers (e.g., consumers, SMBs, line-of-business executives, and emerging market customers) that will play leading roles in much of the next eight years' growth.

According to IDC Chief Analyst Frank Gens, "There will be much greater urgency in 2013 as the market moves way past the 'exploration' stage to full-blown high-stakes competition. Vendors' ability (or inability) to compete on the 3rd Platform right now — even at the risk of cannibalizing their own 2nd Platform franchises — will reorder leadership ranks within the IT market and, ultimately, every industry that uses IT."