“We expect the growth rate to increase from the third quarter of 2009,” said Laurie Wurster, the Research Director at Gartner, Inc.
The firm announced in its most recent survey that worldwide revenues in application development totaled $7.3 billion in 2008, or a 4.2 per cent increase from a 2007 revenue of $7 billion dollars.
“In 2007, the annual growth rate was 11.2 per cent - indicating that the worldwide economic crunch has clearly slowed growth in this market,” said Wurster. “However, single-digit growth in a challenging economic climate is good - especially in this relatively mature market overall, with some hot spots remaining within it. Investments are temporarily suspended and deferred, but not cancelled.”
The fastest growing technology sectors in 2008 were construction software (development environments and suites) at 6.7 per cent, quality-testing tools at 5.5 per cent and security testing (dynamic application security testing – DAST- and static application security testing - SAST) tools at 39.2 per cent.
Gartner also said that the key drivers in the application development market were cost containment and cohesive offerings. Additionally, organizations focused on improving software quality, particularly where security was concerned. Further, demand in Service-oriented architecture (SOA), software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing also fueled growth in the market.
The Asia/Pacific region recorded the greatest growth at 12.1 per cent, followed by Eastern Europe at 9.8 per cent, and the Middle East and Africa at 7.9 per cent. Last year, the application development market in Western Europe grew by 6 percent and 1.6 percent in North America last year.
“For the remainder of 2009, alternate software delivery model [sales] will pick up, and vendors will optimize on direct vs. channel sales,” said Wurster. “However, the bulk of business for advanced developments and advanced usage of AD tools will come from North America - and some mature economies in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.”
“Alternative delivery and acquisition models (ADAMs) are becoming more pervasive in many, if not all, aspects of IT development, delivery and management,” said Ben Pring, the Research Vice President at Gartner in a previous press statement. “Market excitement over new delivery methods is intensifying and whetting buyers’ appetites for new options and services that promise greater flexibility, speed-to-solution, lowered capital investment, and pay-for-use models.”
Gartner noted in its projections for the 2009 IT outsourcing industry that alternative models, such as SaaS, business process utility (BPU), infrastructure utility (IU), remote management services (RMS) and Web platform/cloud computing, would be adopted by more enterprises to in 2009 - putting pressure on traditional data center-supported services.
