Melanie Posey is Research Director of IDC's Web Hosting and Telecom Markets programs. In this position, Ms. Posey provides analysis, forecasting, and consulting on telecom and Web hosting sector dynamics and emerging managed services including WAN optimization and content delivery networks (CDNs). Ms. Posey also covers the sector’s service provider positioning as well as technological and business model innovation.

Ms. Posey’s involvement in the telecommunications and technology market research sector dates back to the early 1990s. She began her career at IDC in 1997 covering wide-area network services markets and went on to spearhead research in the Web hosting and telecom strategy areas before leaving IDC for a position at a consumer market research firm. Ms. Posey rejoined IDC in late 2006. Prior to IDC, she was a senior analyst at Northern Business Information/Datapro, responsible for research on global wireline and wireless equipment markets. Ms. Posey was also an analyst at the U.S. International Trade Commission where she worked on the teams that prepared the U.S. telecommunications and business services offers for multilateral trade negotiations.

Ms. Posey is a well-respected industry analyst, frequent speaker at industry and client events, and widely-quoted source in such publications as Investor’s Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and NetworkWorld. She has won several IDC awards, including the runner-up James Peacock Memorial Award.

Ms. Posey graduated from Amherst College with a BA in French, She also holds an MA in Political Science from the University Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MA in International Relations/International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).