Information access software market in for bumpy ride

Information access software market in for bumpy ride


Sector will experience "swift change" and growth in 2006

The information access software market is in for a bumpy ride in 2006, IDC predicted today.

The sector, which includes business intelligence, search and retrieval, text mining, content management, compliance, and data warehousing software, will experience "swift change" and growth in 2006, according to the analyst firm.

IDC expects consolidation and convergence across several markets, and believes that acquisitions will "run rampant" while partnerships are made and broken as major vendors attempt to dominate the markets.

Large software vendors will enter the information access markets to take advantage of services opportunities and to maintain their customer relationships.

"IDC believes that the next two years will be a time of ferment, change and growth in the information access software and solutions markets," said Susan Feldman, research vice president for content technologies at IDC.

"Business intelligence vendors have the edge right now because of their size, but large software vendors, hardware vendors and even software integrators are entering the converged market with a variety of platforms that combine some of the elements of the enterprise workplace.

"Each of these will seek to dominate the information access market by first selling to its installed base and then moving outward as it gains traction."

Demand for access to information anywhere, anytime and from any device will spur the development of products that can automatically recognise devices and format information and deliver it securely to users, IDC predicts.

In addition, business intelligence applications and business process automation are expected to merge to become 'intelligent process automation'.

According to the IDC report, search/discovery applications and business intelligence applications will begin to offer overlapping capabilities.

The study also expects information access products to converge into information management and access platforms that provide the information infrastructure for the emerging enterprise workplace.

These changes will help spawn a new wave of investment in business intelligence applications as demand grows for "business intelligence for the masses" requiring more scalable applications with easier-to-use interfaces.

The report also expects "fourth-generation search" to arrive in 2006 with advanced language analysis tools and capabilities that threaten both the current generation of enterprise search platforms and the data warehouse/online analytical processing market.

"Content management lite" applications are also predicted to proliferate to manage scattered information on file servers and desktops.