Big Data Means Big Growth For Microsoft And SAP
November 4, 2013 Jenny Thomas
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Just like companies using other platforms, big data is nothing new to IBM i shops, who are also struggling to keep up with their growing volume of data. This was demonstrated by the enhancements Big Blue promises to deliver this month with IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 7 (TR7), which we told you about last month in The Four Hundred. So when IDC released the latest results from its Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker on enterprise software growth, we were not surprised to see that big data played a role in determining which companies saw growth in the first six months of the year. The analysts at IDC found that for the first half of 2013, the worldwide software market grew 5.5 percent year over year to $179 billion, which is a growth rate that is close to IDC’s forecast of 5.7 percent growth for the full year. IDC groups the total software market into three primary segments to make it easier to track the ebb and flow of dollars in this ecosystem: Applications; Application Development & Deployment (AD&D); and Systems Infrastructure Software. In the AD&D primary market segment, which comprised 23.4 percent of total software revenue, year-over-year growth for the first half was 5.1 percent, which is slightly lower than for software overall. Within this market segment, Integration and Process Automation Middleware and Structured Data Management stood out with year-over-year growth rates above 6 percent. While Integration and Process Automation Middleware is driven by Business Process Management adoption, Structured Data Management is largely driven by the Relational Database Management Systems market growth, which grew at 7.0 percent year over year as big data and analytics adoption continues. Big data and analytics are also closely tied to the fast growth of social business software markets on the Applications side. From a vendor perspective, Oracle led the AD&D primary market in 1H13 with 23.1 percent of market share followed by IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and SAS. Microsoft and SAP experienced the highest growth rates due to the demand for their relational databases. That big data growth is more clearly illustrated in the following graphic provided by IDC. Here we can see Microsoft holds onto the top spot, but even though SAP comes in at position four amongst the top five worldwide software vendors, when you look at the final column showing year-over-year growth, you will notice that SAP was second only to software giant Microsoft in its jump up from 2012 to 2013.
“Enterprises are seeing new opportunities to drive new and improved products and services by leveraging information,” explained Henry Morris, senior vice president for worldwide software, services, and executive advisory research at IDC. “Therefore, it stands to reason that software to manage, access, and share information (structured and unstructured) continues to be a priority for competing in today’s economy and a driver of software market growth.” Out of the other two IDC software market segments, it was the core Applications market that finished slightly higher with a 5.8 percent growth rate because of the strong gains in the Content and Collaborative Applications markets. Within the Collaboration market, Enterprise Social Networks solutions grew 28.3 percent year over year and now represent almost 13 percent of the total Collaborative Applications market. Finally, in the System Infrastructure Software market segment, which comprised 23.4 percent of total software revenue and grew 5.1 percent year over year in the first half, the System Software secondary segment grew more than 8 percent year over year driven by the launching of Windows 8 and Cloud enablement solutions adoption from vendors like VMware and Citrix Systems. Microsoft improved its leadership in the System Infrastructure Software overall with 30.1 percent of market share, gaining more than 1.5 points and followed by IBM, Symantec, EMC, and VMware. The results of IDC’s look at enterprise software growth can be interpreted as good news. The 5.5 percent year-over-year increase is slightly higher than the 5.1 percent growth experienced in the first half of 2012, which could be interpreted as a sign of recovery following a period of uncertainty caused by turmoil in the Eurozone. IDC says is expects this moderately positive scenario to continue for several more years. IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker monitors vendor business performance by measuring total software revenue, which includes license plus maintenance plus SaaS and other subscription revenue. The Tracker covers more than 800 software vendors across a total of 49 countries markets, including: Asia/Pacific; Japan; Central and Easter Europe; Middle East; Africa; Latin America; North America; and Western Europe. The results from the past six months also revealed that on a regional basis, the top growing regions were Latin America and the U.S. with 8.6 percent and 7.9 percent year-over-year growth respectively, making the Americas stronger than ever with 52.8 percent market share. IDC says it was expected that Western Europe would show a slow recovery, reaching a 5.1 percent year-over-year growth in the first half. In Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), the region had a year-over-year growth rate of 6.6 percent. Unfortunately in Japan, the devaluation of the yen turned positive growth in local currency into a decline of 9.2 percent in U.S. dollars. For more on the Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker, check out the IDC website. RELATED STORIES Big Data Gets Easier to Handle With IBM i TR7 Big Data, OpenPower Are Big Levers For Power Systems Gartner Says Big Data Getting Bigger, Skills Lag Analytic Skills Is The Top Big Data Priority, Lavastorm Says IBM Completes One Big Data Analytic Acquisition, Announces Another Power Systems Marketing VP Sees Big Data Bulls Eye
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