Global enterprise software market rose 3.6% in 2012 to $342bn, mainly driven by Big Data, Analytics, and Cloud, according to a new report from IDC.
IDC’s latest Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker revealed that the faster growing market segments in 2012 included Data Access, Analysis and Delivery, Collaborative Applications, CRM Applications, Security Software, and System and Network Management Software, each reporting 6-7% rises.
IDC Worldwide Software, Services and Executive Advisory Research senior vice president Henry Morris said the global software market, comprised of a multi-layered collection of technologies and applications, is growing more slowly in this period of economic uncertainty.
"Yet there is strong growth in selective areas. The management and leveraging of information for competitive advantage is driving growth in markets associated with Big Data and analytics," Morris said.
"Similarly, rapid growth in cloud deployments is fuelling growth in application areas associated with social business and customer experience.
"Both these initiatives require a reliable and secure infrastructure, driving investments in security and system/network management.
The combination of these forces is advancing the growth to what IDC has termed the third platform."
During the year, Application Development & Deployment segment comprised 24% of total software revenues and reported 4.6% rise year-over-year.
The rise in AD&D segment was driven by the performance of the Data Access, Analysis, and Delivery and the Structured Data Management secondary markets that reported 6.0% and 5.9% growth respectively.
Business Intelligence and Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) applications are responsible for the rise in AD&D market due to widening Big Data and Analytics adoption.
Oracle topped the list of AD&D segment with a market share of 21.6%, followed by IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and SAS.
Applications primary market segment captured 49% of total software revenue, while reporting 3.3% rise year-over-year and was mainly driven by CRM and Collaborative Applications that reported growth of 7%.
Microsoft led the Applications primary market by capturing 13.7% of market share followed by SAP, Oracle, IBM, and Adobe.
Additionally the System Infrastructure Software generated 27% of total software revenue and reported 3.3% rise in 2012, mainly due to the security software and system/network management software secondary segments that grew 6% year over year.
Within the System Infrastructure Software segment, Microsoft topped the list with 28% of market share, followed by IBM, Symantec, EMC, and VMware.