Data Drives Enterprise Software Market Up 5.5 Percent
Growing demand for application software along with big data and analytics drove a recovering enterprise software market in 2013. Software sales also benefitted from an economic recovery in Europe and strengthening in the United States.
Meanwhile, Microsoft remained the dominant software vendor in 2013 with market share totaling 17.8 percent, more than twice its nearest competitor.
Market researcher IDC reported in its Semiannual Software Tracker report that the global enterprise software market grew 5.5 percent year over year to $369 billion. Leading the way was the "applications development and deployment" sector, which accounted for 23 percent of global software sales in 2013. The application segment set the pace for growth in 2013 at 5.6 percent year-on-year.
IDC said the application software segment was driven by growth in areas like structured data management (up 7.3 percent) along with data access, analysis, and delivery (up 6 percent).
Among the other markets segments expanding in 2013 were "advanced analytics software" and database management systems. IDC said the steady adoption of big data and analytics continued to fuel growth last year.
"Data provides the edge to companies that can leverage their information for competitive advantage – with new products and services," IDC's Henry Morris noted in a statement. Those products and services were largely focused on big data and analytics adoption.
The market researcher also reported that the general software application market, which accounts for half of global revenues, grew by 5.5 percent year-on-year. The application segment includes collaboration and content applications, which together grew at a 10 percent clip over the previous year.
Microsoft continued to dominate the application software market in 2013 with a 14.1 percent share, more than 1 percent higher year-on-year. Overall, Microsoft's 2013 software revenues totaled nearly $65.6 billion, up 12.2 percent over the previous year.
Trailing Microsoft in IDC's 2013 software rankings were numbers two IBM, with 8 percent share, and number three Oracle, with 7.9 percent of the pie.
In the systems infrastructure software market, which makes up 27 percent of global software revenues, the launch of Windows 8 along with the adoption of cloud system software and virtual machines boosted that market segment 8 percent over the previous year, IDC reported.
Microsoft also dominated systems software segment with market share totaling 29.3 percent last year. Redmond's market share grew a whopping 1.5 percent year-on-year. Trailing were IBM, Symantec, EMC, and VMware.
IDC said it expects sustained growth in global enterprise software sales as the European Union's economic recovery continues. The Euro recovery accounted for much of the increased growth over 2012, when the global software market grew only 4.3 percent.
North America and the Latin American region were the fastest growing markets in 2013 followed by Western Europe. The Euro Zone finished strong in the second half of 2013 with a growth rate of 6.6 percent, IDC said.
One of the few declining markets in 2013 was Japan, which declined 11.6 percent. IDC cited devaluation of the yen against the U.S. dollar as the main culprit. The company did not report results for the emerging Chinese software market.
