Enterprise software mrkt to rise by 13%: Gartner

The market for softwares used by enterprises in the country is projected to grow 13% this year and revenues for the segment will reach $3.22 billion despite challenging economic conditions, research firm Gartner said today.

"Despite challenging economic conditions, the enterprise software market in India is projected to grow 13% in 2012, as revenue reaches $3.22 billion in 2012," it said.

"With Indian enterprises continuing to embrace IT to improve productivity and drive growth, penetration of ICT infrastructure has been growing rapidly during the past decade," Gartner Principal Research Analyst Asheesh Raina said.

Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is software used in organisations, such as in a business or government, contrary to software chosen by individuals like retail software.

India will become the fourth-largest enterprise software market in Asia Pacific this year and the country is forecast to account for 11% of the region's total revenue of $29.33 billion, the report said.

"A combination of high domestic demand, presence of global vendors and entry of new small vendors with innovative products have made the overall ecosystem apt for robust growth," Raina added.

By 2016, India's share of the software market in Asia Pacific is expected to reach 12.1%, representing $5.4 billion in revenue, the report added.

However, in comparison with China (with 27% share of regional spending in 2011), the software market in India is still relatively small and evolving.

"End users in Asia Pacific are expecting to increase their spending on application and infrastructure software, with China and India being the most optimistic followed by Malaysia and South Korea," Raina said.

Priority areas of software spending include operating systems, Database Management System (DBMS) and application development, it added.

"In the next five, the fastest-growing segments will be web conferencing and team collaboration, enterprise content management, customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning [ERP]," Gartner said.