Two ways into each category.
A Category Brief explains the business problem, the important competitive distinctions and the questions worth asking next. A full Category Analysis reconstructs how the category developed, compares claims with documented capabilities, examines customer and economic evidence, and tests possible strategic seams.
The four initial categories do not share a predetermined destination. A plausible opening in one category is not evidence that the same strategy belongs in another.
Three kinds of statement.
Documented evidence includes filings, research, product documentation and reported customer cases. We identify vendor-reported figures and announced features as such.
G2G interpretation connects that evidence to a strategic question. It is analysis, not a finding established by a source.
A hypothesis to test asks whether a consequential problem remains unresolved, for which customer, with what economic effect and under what conditions. A vendor’s absence from a public case study is not proof that it lacks the capability.
What makes a strategic seam useful?
A seam is a consequential discrepancy between the problem executives believe they are solving and what the evidence suggests drives their actual results. We look for customer experience, business decisions and economic consequences—not just a new product claim.
We ask what else could explain the observation, which competitors already address it, who bears the cost and what evidence would change the interpretation. A seam becomes a company strategy only after a separate investigation of that company’s capabilities, access, economics and right to win.
Dates, sources and corrections.
Each publication identifies its research edition and links its sources. Product claims, ownership and positioning can change. Reported case outcomes do not establish universal effects, and correlations do not by themselves establish cause.
These October 2026 editions are based on public-source research; they are not customer fieldwork or product audits. We welcome corrections that identify the claim, a source and the change that source supports.
Public research. Private advisory work.
Category Briefs and full Category Analyses are public. Company Reads and Category Resets are private consulting engagements. Public service pages describe those engagements; they do not provide access to client or prospect deliverables.