Worldwide Application Integration and Middleware Market Increased 7 Percent in 2005

Gartner: Examine the State of the Industry at Upcoming Gartner Application Integration & Web Services Summit, 12-13 June in Barcelona, Spain . Worldwide application integration and middleware (AIM) total software revenue totaled $8.5 billion in 2005, a 7.1 percent increase over 2004 revenue. The application integration and middleware market is in a volatile phase because integration design patterns and technology are evolving rapidly. Software suppliers are making fundamental changes in their product architectures, embracing standards and verticalising their offerings, new suppliers are entering the market, and weaker players have disappeared at a high rate. This complicates the task of application architects who must deal with shifting technology, supplier turnover and their own learning curves. In 2005, the top five vendors accounted for 69 percent of the total worldwide AIM market (see Table 1). IBM maintained a commanding lead in the market, with 37.2 percent market share in 2005. While IBM is the clear market share leader in message-oriented middleware (MOM), integration suites, portal products and transaction processing middleware (TPM), it faces fierce competition in enterprise service bus (ESB) and B2B software. BEA's continued strength in the application server segment helped solidify its spot as the No. 2 AIM software vendor worldwide. Oracle and Microsoft were the only top-tier vendors to post double-digit growth in 2005. Table 1

Worldwide 2005 Vendor Revenue Estimates for AIM Software, Based on Total Software Revenue (Millions of Dollars)
Company	2005	2005 Market Share (%)	2004	2004 Market Share (%)	2004-2005 Growth (%)
IBM	3,159.4	37.2	2,959.8	37.3	6.7
BEA Systems	1,232.5	14.5	1,163.3	814.7	6.0
Oracle	739.4	8.7	529.8	6.7	39.6
Microsoft	397.1	4.7	350.3	4.4	13.4
Tibco	314.4	3.7	289.9	3.7	8.5
Other Vendors	2,657.3	31.3	2,643.0	33.3	0.5
TOTAL	8,500.2	100.0	7,936.1	100.0	7.1

In 2005, the United States represented over 41 percent of AIM spending, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with 35 percent of the market. Within EMEA, Western Europe accounted for 31 percent of the market, however, emerging markets, such as Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa, are significantly outpacing Western Europe in terms of growth. Less than 10 percent of total AIM revenue is generated by European vendors. However, several European players such as Capeclear, Iona and Software AG outperformed global players in some emerging segments such as the ESB market, which helped them gain share in the overall AIM market. Japan and Asia/Pacific represented more than 18 percent of the market in 2005. In 2006, the worldwide AIM market is expected to grow at similar rates as the outlook for the market remains challenging amid intense competition from the large software and systems vendors. Organisations are faced with spinning forces, such as the constant influx of new systems, immovable legacy and internal politics that end up increasing the complexity of IT systems. While integration can simplify complexity to make the IT environment accessible to more users and usable in more contexts, budgets for 'reducing complexity' have been difficult to obtain Even when the budget holders have been convinced of the need for simplification, it still remains hard to obtain the right budget. We are seeing a paradoxical situation. Complexity of IT systems has risen, but historically this has not generated a spree of spending in application integration or new system software. However, we expect software spending to continue to increase because corporations have started their movement of older systems to a service-oriented architecture based environment. Market Share: AIM and Portal Software, worldwide, 2005. Publ 20060608