Gary Chen is Research Manager for IDC's Cloud and Virtualization System Software. In this role, Mr. Chen focuses on server virtualization software and its transformational effect on the larger datacenter ecosystem of systems management, networking, storage, and security. His research also focuses on cloud system software, an extension of virtualization that provides the fundamental infrastructure for clouds.

Prior to joining IDC, Mr. Chen was a Senior Analyst at Yankee Group, focusing on small and medium enterprise infrastructure, including virtualization, cloud computing, security, Linux/open source, and channel strategies. Mr. Chen also has 10 years of IT and software development experience, having served as the Director of IT at RIC International, a translation services company, as well as the Director of Engineering at EMUMAIL, a messaging applications and services company. Mr. Chen has consulted extensively at numerous businesses in the retail, e-commerce, healthcare, and publishing industries, helping them make and execute crucial IT decisions. Well known in the industry, Mr. Chen has spoken regularly at industry events and is also frequently quoted in industry and business publications.

Mr. Chen holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Miami and completed a two year LEAP graduate program for computer systems engineering at Boston University.