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IDC Releases Market Share Information and Forecast for Application Deployment Software Market

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

The worldwide application deployment software market, which includes application, Web and integration servers, and message-oriented, transaction-server and access-integration middleware, grew 4.4% in 2003 to reach just over $7 billion in software revenues. Software revenue is the combination of new license revenue of all types (not just perpetual right-to-use licenses) and all the follow-on activity related to previous years' licenses, which is a leading indicator of future license market opportunity. IDC expects this market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 4% through 2008.

According to IDC, the top ranking vendors for 2003 remained the same as in 2002 for the application deployment software market. IBM, BEA and Oracle had shares of 35.6%, 11.5%, and 5.9% respectively, and all three gained share when compared to 2002.

When looking specifically at the Linux- and Unix-based application deployment software markets, the most competitive in the marketplace, BEA continued to hold leads in both, but Oracle grew strongly to become a real factor. BEA is especially strong on these platforms in North America. In aggregate, Oracle grew at a rate of three times the market average. IBM continued to hold a wide overall lead in North America and in the aggregate of all other regions primarily because of the pervasiveness of its popular transaction-server and message-oriented middleware.

"Because of these platform and geographic differences there is a large risk in making investment, development and marketing decisions by looking at the market results and forecasts only in their totality," says Dennis Byron, IDC business process automation and deployment software analyst. "We analyze the platform differences by geography, and look at a dozen other metrics that affect the market, most importantly the increasing penetration of open-source alternatives."

IDC believes that in 2004 the overall application deployment platform software market will grow almost 4% from 2003. This forecast is based on interviews with over 1200 IT managers conducted in North America in October/November 2003. Major market drivers over the 2004-2008 forecast period include:

-- The continuing popularity of heterogeneous compute environments. The mainframe and OS/400 systems that account for IBM's overall dominance in middleware today will be displaced slowly, and as they are, it's an open field for all brands of application deployment software products.

-- The move towards more fully functional platforms by professional developers and their management. Suppliers that are ahead of the curve in combining application, Web and integration servers and message-oriented, transaction-server and access middleware with easy-to-use toolsets and frameworks have the best chance of reaping the rewards over the forecast period.

-- The demand for business process automation (BPA) deployment functionality. Part of the market wants industry-, role-based-, and/or size-of-target-organization-specific BPA software that is not hard-wired into a packaged application. This demand is a key growth driver for application deployment software.

IDC's recently released studies, Worldwide and North American Integration Server Software Platform 2003 Vendor Analysis: Geography and Platform Affect Market Dynamics (IDC #31341) and North American Integration Server Software Platform 2004-2008 Forecast: Will Middleware Functionality Converge on Integration (IDC #31167) are the first of a series of related studies on the application deployment software markets. Included in both reports are an updated forecast of this market for the years 2004-2008 as well as 2003 market shares and growth rates for over 50 leading integration server software suppliers.

Data contained in these reports was derived from IDC's Software Market Forecaster Database, which covers over 80 functional software markets worldwide by multiple operating environment and geographic dimensions in addition to the six mentioned above. For additional detail regarding software market segmentations, definitions, operating environments and geographies tracked and analyzed, see IDC's Software Taxonomy, (IDC #30838).

For more information on the IDC Software Market Forecaster Database and the Integration and Deployment Software Continuous Information Service (CIS), please contact Erin Traudt at etraudt@idc.com.

To purchase these documents, call IDC's sales hotline at 508-988-7988 or email sales@idc.com.

About IDC

IDC is the premier global market intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunications industries. We analyze and predict technology trends so that our clients can make strategic, fact-based decisions on IT purchases and business strategy. Over 700 IDC analysts in 50 countries provide local expertise and insights on technology markets. Business executives and IT managers have relied for 40 years on our advice to make decisions that contribute to the success of their organizations.

IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. Additional information can be found at www.idc.com

All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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