Binding software (Middleware, AIM) - the world market

2017: The iPaaS market for the first time exceeded $1 billion

In June, 2018 analysts of Gartner published some excerpts from a research of the world market of the market of infrastructure of applications and a middleware (Application Infrastructure and Middleware, AIM). Follows from the report that fast-growing sales of integration services PaaS (iPaaS) began to increase even stronger and reached a record high.

According to experts, global expenses on the solutions AIM in 2017 made $28.5 billion that is 11.9% more than an indicator of year prescription. This rise was promoted by such trends as transition of the companies to cloud platforms and services, constantly growing demand for means of processing and data analysis in real or almost real time. Besides, the market is helped development of API interfaces and projects in the field of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things.

The market of integration services PaaS in 2017 for the first time passed for $1 billion

The vice president for researches in Gartner Fabrizio Biscotti explains demand for infrastructure of applications and binding software with universal digitalization and development of digital initiatives in the companies.

The more the organizations passes to digital business models, the need for modern infrastructure of applications for connection of data, software, users and the equipment is more so that to provide new digital services or products — the analyst emphasized.

In 2017 iPaaS segment volume for the first time passed for $1 billion, having increased by 72% of rather previous year. And in 2016 growth rates were lower — about 60%.

Gartner says that the small iPaaS-companies try to dispute the dominating positions of traditional producers.

Still there are many opportunities for further consolidation as more than a half of the market of AIM belongs to the vendors which are not entering the first five — the director of research in Gartner Bindi Bhullar noted.[1]

2015: Zero growth rates

On April 14, 2016 analysts of Gartner published results of a research of the world market of the market of infrastructure of applications and a middleware (Application Infrastructure and Middleware, AIM). Its volume nearly fell because of expensive dollar.

Experts counted that in 2015 sales of AIM solutions reached $23.9 billion that is only 0.1% more than an indicator of year prescription. In 2014 growth rates were measured by 8.8%.

Because of expensive dollar the market of binding software ceased to grow

Significant decrease in dynamics of sales of the considered software is connected with high US dollar exchange rate. If not to take this factor in consideration, then in 2015 the market of AIM increased in volume by 7.8%.

Specialists note that in 2015 the segment of solutions PaaS was the most fast-growing not only in the market of AIM, but also in all industry of the corporate software. So, sales of integration services PaaS (iPaaS) and application services of PaaS (aPaaS) rose by 55% and 40% respectively.

Buyers select iPaaS because of the low cost, reduced operational requirements and ensuring high performance of work. Producers are interested in these solutions more and more, having doubled quantity of the offered products for the last 12 months — the director of research of Gartner Keith Guttridge notes.

In 2015 the group of market leaders of infrastructure of applications and a middleware remained on the places. Only Software AG left Top-5, and its place was taken by Tibco Software.

The first line was saved by IBM whose market share in 2015 reached 25.2%. The second and third position was taken by Oracle and Microsoft with indicators of 13.3% and 4.7% respectively.

Gartner pays attention to 36.4 percent growth in sales of the AIM solutions Salesforce.com (the company takes the fourth place in the overall ranking). Growth of this vendor and also a number of small producers says that the cloud companies and small firms begin to restrict traditional leaders, the analyst of Gartner Fabrizio Biscotti notes.^[2]

2014: The largest changes in 10 years

On April 22, 2015 the Gartner analytical company published excerpts from a research of global market of infrastructure of applications and a middleware (Application Infrastructure and Middleware, AIM). In 2014 there were some changes in location of leading manufacturers.^[3]

By estimates of analysts, in 2014 sales of the solutions AIM made $23.8 billion that is 8.8% more, than the previous year. These growth rates was higher, than at all market of corporate software which volume rose by 5.7% — from $405.5 billion in 2013 to $428.6 billion a year later.

The Segment of infrastructure of applications and binding software grows quicker than all market of the corporate software

"Pressure upon the largest of AIM vendors from such suppliers as Salesforce.com and SAP amplifies — Fabrizio Biscotti, the director of research of Gartner says. — At the same time in conditions when advantages of clouds become more obvious, many PaaS-providers, like Google, Engine Yard, Informatica and Boomi, also became threat to the acting players".

Additional pressure upon leaders is put by developers of "open" solutions among which there are MuleSoft, Talend and Liferay and also the company specializing in niche products with fast-growing demand on them (for example, technologies of data processing in memories or fast message exchange systems).

All this led to changes in alignment of forces among producers of infrastructure of applications and software of a binding layer in 2014 after ten years of stability in the market. Salesforce.com was most noted: in 2014 the company increased sales of AIM solutions by 55.2% in comparison with previous year — to $740 million that corresponds to a 3.1 percent market share.

The largest vendor remained IBM whose revenue in the considered market in 2014 made $6.9 billion, having increased by 6.1%. Top three also included Oracle and Microsoft which earned from products of the class Application Infrastructure and Middleware about $3.3 billion and $1.2 billion respectively. In comparison with 2013 revenues of these American companies rose by 1.5% and 3.8%.

2010: Growth by 7% to $17.6 billion IBM - the leader

Demand for solutions of business process management increases as result of growth of recovery of the enterprises and innovations. Income from infrastructure applications exceeded $16 billion, but in the market the creative disorder is observed.

World income of the market of software applications of infrastructure and middleware (AIM) in 2010 was $17.6 billion, with growth in 7.3 percent points since 2009, Gartner reports. In 2009 revenues of AIM in the world grew by 3.4% and reached $16.4 billion.

The director of research of Gartner company Fabrizio Biscotti considers: "The organizations leave from attention and control over control of growth of expenses to preparation of expenses for the growth. AIM technologies are a key link between upgrade of infrastructure and the innovation applications as both that and others well approach service of any actions for future growth".

According to him, the service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) still is the focus of attention while "cloud" quickly moves up a scale of priorities. "Cloud" occupies only a modest part of expenses in space of AIM, but it will change as soon as the organizations learn the advantages offered by cloud computing, such as, for example, platform as service (PaaS - platform as a service) closer.

The market became the witness of a number of acquisitions with income from AIM more than $1.2 billion in 2010 which got to vendors. It caused further concentration of the market for the five of leading manufacturers to whose share 61% of the market of the solutions AIM, in comparison with 57% in 2009 fall.

IBM saved the leading share of profitability which made 32.6% of total income of the software of AIM in 2010. The success of this five of vendors was provided by acquisitions of the companies and organic growth. As a result of recent acquisitions and new strategic decisions of Software AG showed the highest annual growth among these five software makers of AIM.

With technical aspect, the most quickly developing segments include technologies of management of SOA, application servers, portal products and devices. Products open source also more and more become a part of plans of deployment with emphasis on use of software of servers with the open code, the service bus of the enterprises (ESB) and some other functionality of AIM, such as auxiliary and built in by software (firmware) for integration of devices.

Theresa ​​ Jones (Teresa Jones), the top analyst on the researches Gartner considers that the market of BPM continues to show the steady growth (9.2%) testimonial of the fact that BPM continues to have an impact as the organizations return to development and innovations.

North America and Western Europe are the largest regional markets today, they are followed by Japan and the Pacific Rim. The developing regions showed rapid growth, with good characteristics in Latin America. The Pacific Rim continues to remain the most fast-growing region in the world for AIM technologies.

"Emerging economies, such as China, India and Vietnam, whose needs for calculations grow constantly, promoted a contribution to the general development of AIM technologies, such as application servers", - Asheesh Raina, the top analyst of Gartner noted.

According to Biskotti, Gartner continues to observe a creative disorder where on the one hand large suppliers continue to be consolidated, and on the other hand, new players create the new markets, such as low-level messages (LLM), the managed file transfer (MFT) and the analysis of business processes (BPA). Besides, there is arising, but already bright activity around "cloud", with the growing attention to offers "platforms are as-services" (PaaS).

Notes