Worldwide application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) software market revenue totaled $15.9bn in 2009, an increase of 2.8% compared $15.5bn in 2008, according to IT research and advisory firm Gartner.
According to the report, the top five vendors accounted for approximately 58% of the AIM market in 2009, up from 52% in 2008. IBM gained the top spot with accounting for 31.5% of total AIM software revenue in 2009, followed by Oracle, Microsoft, Software AG and Tibco with 16.7%, 3.9%, 3% and 2.6%, respectively. IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Software AG has registered growth of 8.1%, 29.2%, 9.6% and 9.1%, respectively.
Of the 12 segments in which Gartner divides the AIM market, SOA governance technologies, message-oriented middleware, AIM appliances and BPM suites were the fastest-growing segments with double-digit increases in 2009.
Geographically, North America and Western Europe are the largest regional markets in AIM software segment, followed by Japan and Asia/Pacific. The emerging regions, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa and Asia/Pacific also have demonstrated the fastest-growth performances while Eastern Europe has shown a dismal performance on par with the mature regions.
Gartner expects growth to be solid for AIM technology, because of the grown pent-up demand over time.
Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner, said: The increasing adoption of open source has hit commercial revenues. Nevertheless, on the back of strong drivers, such as service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) adoption and buoyant demand for application integration, the overall AIM market has remained positive, unlike most software segments, where revenues generally declined.
