Application infra and middleware mkt grows 5.6 pc in 2013

BANGALORE, INDIA: The worldwide application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) software revenue market totaled $21.5 billion in 2013, a 5.6 percent increase from 2012, according to Gartner, Inc.

"Application infrastructure and middleware projects are becoming the cornerstone of the digital business," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner. "While spending in traditional AIM products continues and remains sizeable, we are seeing a growing interest toward newer offerings, such as platform as a service (PaaS), low-latency messaging, complex event processing and in-memory data grids.

These technologies are essential to developing a digital business strategy, for example, connecting digital marketing and channels, or empowering staff with social networks." "The use of multiple delivery models, increased reliance on governance technologies, and the convergence of application and data integration requirements are all driving organizations to sustain significant investment in AIM technologies and skills," said Biscotti. Emerging opportunities such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, mobile enablement, intelligent business operations and in-memory computing are all areas in which AIM providers continue to play an active role as innovators.

"We are witnessing the early days of the idea of 'integrated business', where it is not only applications or processes that are interconnected, but also sensors and things," added Mr. Biscotti. In terms of vendor dynamics, IBM retained the No. 1 position with a 1.6 percent growth in 2013 (see Table 1). The rankings of the top five vendors have not changed over the last three years; however, they are showing mixed performance under pressure from specialized vendors, in particular PaaS providers and open source software suppliers.