Global App Development Software Market Expected to Cross $ 9 billion in 2012

Wednesday September 12, 2012 , 3 min Read

Gartner has predicted that the worldwide application development (AD) software market will reach more than **US$9 billion** in 2012, an increase of **1.8%** over 2011. The primary drivers of growth include, evolving software delivery models, new development methodologies, emerging mobile application development and open source software.

In Australia, for example, spending on application development software is expected to reach US$159 million (A$153.4 million) in 2012, up 5% over 2011.

"Application modernization and increasing agility will continue to be a solid driver for AD spending, apart from other emerging dynamics of cloud, mobility and social computing," said Asheesh Raina, principal research analyst at Gartner. "These emerging trends are directing AD demand towards newer architectures, programming languages, business model, and user skills."

According to Gartner's 'Market Trends: Application Development Software, Worldwide, 2012-2016', 90% of large, mainstream enterprises and government agencies will use some aspect of cloud computing by 2015. "*The cloud is changing the way applications are designed, tested and deployed, resulting in a significant shift in AD priorities*. The trend is compelling enough to force traditional AD vendors to 'cloud-enable' their existing offerings and position them as a service to be delivered through the cloud. AD for cloud demands rapid deployment, a high focus on user experience and access to highly elastic resources for software testing, while requiring comparatively less underlying infrastructure for developing applications," said Raina.

Gartner also predicts that mobile AD projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4:1 by 2015. Emerging mobile applications, systems and devices are transforming the AD space rapidly, and are one of the top three CIO priorities at the enterprise level. Gartner research found that CIOs expect more than 20% of their employees to use tablets instead of laptops by 2013, hastening the process of change as AD tools and applications evolve to address the requirements of these new devices.

Open Source Driver

Also driving the AD shift, Gartner expects open source software to continue to broaden its presence and create pressure on market leaders during the next three to five years, especially as open source becomes a key element of the software quality landscape beyond the developer level. It predicts that at least 70% of new enterprise Java applications will be deployed on an open source Java application server by the end of 2017.

"Open source software tools will continue to erode revenue for some AD categories in design, testing and Web development," said Raina. "This is being driven primarily by the success of Eclipse and NetBeans, as well as by overall revitalization of the market by new small software providers looking for technical and market disruptive approaches for offering products. Limited budgets and economic conditions compelling enough to focus on cost reduction, also fuel the use of open-source software in various development projects."

[Image courtesy: Gizbot]

Advertise with us