Report: Software Market Should Start to Sizzle Again Next Year

By Narayan Ammachchi

The global software market grew just 3.6 percent in 2012, less than half the growth rate experienced in 2010 and 2011, according to an IDC study.

Though the growth appears to be slowing, the research firm predicts that the market may grow 5.7 percent this year and forecasts a CAGR of 6.3 percent for the five-year period between 2012 and 2017.

The ‘collaborative applications software’ market, according to IDC, will see the highest growth this year.

“The collaborative applications category is also experiencing more cloud deployments than other categories and this represents new software investments,” the research firm stated.

Also gaining traction is software required for data management, which is critical for implementing Big Data and analytics.

The emerging markets are likely to experience stronger growth than the matured ones. ‘The emerging regions have been gaining almost 0.7% of market share every year since 2008 and they are expected to represent almost 19% of global software revenues in 2017,” the report added.