| Although the market is difficult at present, there are several areas where new products and interests are emerging. These include the following: -
Web services have the potential to revolutionize the corporate software business by moving applications to a services-based architecture. -
Consolidation and mergers among software vendors both large and small will surely continue. -
Business intelligence, security, portals, content management, grid computing and self-managing systems are critical growth areas. -
New U.S. laws, such as Basel II and Sarbanes-Oxley, are fuelling interest in records management systems and applications. -
Open source software continues to gain ground both in the consumer and corporate world. -
Open standards-based software will gain ground in the next few years as the benefits become real in the corporate world. -
Wireless technologies to support mobile workers and devices are beginning to attract serious interest. -
Linux continues to make an impact on the corporate world as an alternative to other operating systems and thanks to investment by large vendors such as IBM. Microsoft remains the largest vendor with 2002 business software revenues of $25.9 billion. IBM was second with $13.1 billion of software sales, followed by Oracle and SAP with sales of $6.9 billion and $6.8 billion, respectively. No other vendor achieved software sales of greater than $3 billion in 2002. Three mature world markets—the United States, Western Europe, and Japan—accounted for about 90 percent of global software sales, but more rapid growth was expected to come from emerging markets in Asia—especially China—and Latin America. The global information technology services market is forecast to reach $707 billion by 2007 and in the process record a compound annual growth rate of 5.7 percent. The primary growth drivers will be governments, manufacturing, communications, and financial services. Industry observers, such as Gartner Group, further predict that the highest percentage in growth will occur in the Asia Pacific region, followed by Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Japan, Latin America, North America, and Western Europe. However, this forecast has to be seen in the context of the generally uncertain economic outlook. In a climate of lower investment, the major players, who are able to provide complete one-stop solutions, are cornering a larger share of the market. Customers are primarily interested in a rapid return on investment. Longer sales cycles are expected as corporate customers use the software they have for longer periods of time. |
