In a tweak of its “Worldwide and U.S. Application Management Services 2012-2016 Forecast,” the research firm slightly lowered anticipated year-over-year growth for the application management market to 5.6 percent, or .3 percent below its initial estimates in November. There was also a reduction in its five-year compound annual growth rate to 5.5 percent, down from 5.8 percent about five months ago.
Economic volatility in Europe is partly to blame for the revised outlook. However, Rona Shuchat, IDC director of application development, testing and management services, also pointed to increasing pressures on application management from adoption of SaaS and PaaS. On-demand and as-a-service models will increasingly drum up the need for application management integration for cloud and mobile solutions as the market nears 2016, Shuchat said.
“Clients remain under pressure to reduce costs, deal with regulatory changes, understand and adopt new technologies, and become more global,” Shuchat said in the report. “While cost containment is clearly factored into the AMS equation, so, too, is the rising need to introduce innovative approaches to building and managing the application portfolio.”
That is different from the concentration on operational efficiencies through application management services that brought on record-hit levels of “rebound growth” in 2010, including 14.6 percent year-over-year growth that year in the U.S. and Americas, IDC reported. In 2011, year-over-year growth increased by 10.5 percent from 2010. That growth in 2011 was even higher in the U.S. and Americas region, with an 11.8 percent increase over 2010.
To access a copy of the report, click here.
Justin Kern is senior editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.
