The Hindu Business Line : Asia-Pacific packaged software market may touch $13.4 b this year: IDC

AMID sustained price pressure, increasingly integrated selling strategies and continuing market consolidation, the packaged software market in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow by 11.1 per cent this year to touch $13.4 billion.

"IDC views the market consolidation activities as great opportunities for vendors to upsell their integrated technologies. We also expect vendors to make greater efforts to improve their penetration rates by reaching the corporate boardroom in order to better persuade the criticality of IT investment within business operations," Mr Wilvin Chee, Director, Asia-Pacific Software Research at IDC, said.

Commenting on the expected trends in the marketplace, it said that expanding open source activities would enhance development of solutions in a variety of devices beyond the current scope of commercial or conventional form factors such as desktops or portable PCs.

"Most countries are expected to experience annual growth ranging from 8.1 per cent to 11.6 per cent in their local packaged software market. The traditionally mature countries including Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan will see slightly lower growths ranging between 6.2 per cent and 7.9 per cent. The twin-country growth engines, India and China, are set to achieve an annual growth of 20.3 per cent and 17.2 per cent respectively," it added.

IDC projected that the vast industry applications market (more than $1 billion by 2006 in the region alone) would draw the attention of global vendors who would pursue the acquisition of successful local vendors to establish firmer footprints in the region. "IDC expected the content management applications market to be a `hot button' due to the expansion of information management and said this market is likely to grow at 14.4 per cent.

"Identity and access management is expected to experience the highest growth in the security software market. Underpinning this growth (19.8 per cent) will be the increased concerns around large-scale identity thefts, data control and compliance issues, and the business plus legal consequences that may ensue following unauthorised access of data," it pointed out.

According to IDC, the corporate users would continue to influence vendors' product packaging.