Monday Morning Impact – April 21
IDC: The PC Market Enters Volatile 2025 on Strong Results
PC shipments during the first quarter of 2025 grew 4.9% from the prior year, with global volumes reaching 63.2 million shipments, according to preliminary results from IDC. The Needham, Massachusetts-based market researcher also anticipates that 2025 data will show the PC industry having several tailwinds and headwinds, which make for a challenging outlook and difficult demand planning.
“The market is clearly showing some level of pull-in in the first quarter this year as both vendors and end-users brace for the impact of US tariffs. In a first quarter still relatively untouched by tariffs, the entire ecosystem attempted to accelerate the pace of deliveries to avoid the first round of US tariffs and expected volatility for the remainder of the year,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research vice-president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. “Evidently, commercial demand remained strong in the first quarter, but the new round of US tariffs announced on April 2nd could have a direct inflationary impact on the PC market that could result in delayed IT spending for the remainder of the year.”
Most of the underlying demand factors for PCs, such as the installed base upgrade ahead of Windows 10 end of support, and demand for on-device AI, remain strong, as illustrated by the volumes shipped in Q1 2025. However, the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs and associated inflationary pressure and global recessionary risks will negatively impact demand for PCs in the following quarters in 2025.
“While many are still unpacking the details from the April 2nd tariff announcement, it’s safe to say most are reevaluating what the following months will look like,” said Ryan Reith, group vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Device Trackers. “So far, our supply chain checks haven’t shown any drastic shifts, but this isn’t surprising as it’s almost too volatile to make drastic business decisions. Companies are undoubtedly evaluating everything from inventory on hand, capacity to manufacture by location, possible reroute opportunities to lower import tariffs, and for some, their deal discussions with the US administration. When it comes to hardware like PCs and similar devices, we still maintain the view that most (if not all) price increases will get passed directly to the consumer.”
IDC Tracker products provide data on market size, company share, and forecasts, using proprietary tools and research processes.
Channel Impact®
With Q1 figures unaffected by tariffs, vendors, channel partners, and end-users are preparing for impacts.
CompTIA: Uncertainties Dampen Tech Hiring
Key measurements of tech hiring activity delivered conflicting signals in March as uncertainty factors accelerated, according to CompTIA’s analysis of the most recent report from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Employment by tech sector companies declined by a net 8,428 positions in March. Staffing reductions in the tech services and telecommunications occupation categories accounted for the majority of job losses.
Across all industry sectors, tech employment declined by an estimated 29,000. The tech unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.1%, compared to the national rate of 4.2% for March.
New employee job postings for tech occupations increased slightly to more than 213,000. In all, there were nearly 478,000 active tech job postings last month.
Industry sectors adding the largest numbers of new tech job postings included professional, scientific and technical services (52,526), administrative and support services (26,099) and manufacturing (21,975).
“With many employers in wait-and-see mode, the jobs data is about in line with expectations for the month,” said Tim Herbert, chief research officer, CompTIA.
Software developers and engineers, tech support specialists, systems engineers and architects and cybersecurity engineers and analysts were in highest demand. Positions in artificial intelligence (AI) or that require AI skills accounted for 21% of all active tech job postings. One-half of all tech job postings did not specify a need for a four-year academic degree.
California, North Carolina and Washington recorded the best month over month gains in tech job postings among the states. At the metro market level, Seattle, San Francisco and San Jose led metropolitan markets in month over month growth, while New York City, Washington and Dallas had the highest numbers of postings.
Channel Impact®
While the overall jobs numbers are declining, channel partners and vendors are also finding a wide assortment of available talent on the market.
Horizon3.ai Unveils Security Services Partner Program
Horizon3.ai, a San Francisco-based provider of autonomous security solutions, has rolled out its Vanguard Partner Program—a global channel initiative designed to help partners build profitable lines of service, leveraging the company’s NodeZero platform.
With a tiered structure that includes Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels, the Vanguard Partner Program provides escalating benefits based on technical enablement and business engagement for MSSPs, security resale partners, consultants, and distribution partners.
Benefits include deal registration, lead sharing, and renewal protection to support partner-led growth; multi-tenant licensing; on-demand and instructor-led training for technical and sales enablement; role-based accreditations for sales executives, solution architects, and administrators; and co-branded content and partner portal access.
“By combining our platform, NodeZero, with focused enablement and GTM support, we’re helping partners transform pentesting into a gateway for higher-margin services—from compliance and remediation to consulting and managed security services. It’s a massive opportunity for our ecosystem to build sustainable growth,” said Marc Inderhees, Vice President of Channels & Alliances at Horizon3.ai.
The company claims a client list of more than 3,000 organizations with nearly 120,000 real-world tests.
Channel Impact®
The Vanguard Partner Program is intended to help technology service providers go beyond traditional, point-in-time penetration testing by building service lines across assessment, remediation, defense, and advisory. The program emphasizes scalability, services-led growth, and recurring revenue opportunities.
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