IDC finds that the negative impact from the economic crisis is almost over for the infrastructure management software market in most countries in the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan region[1] (APEJ). Budgets and purse strings have started to loosen up again with a rebound expected in 2010. IDC expects the infrastructure management software market to experience a 12% year-on-year growth and return to double-digit growth rates during the forecast period up to 2014, according to IDC’s Asia/Pacific Semiannual Software Tracker.

Larger vendors have been leveraging their resources to bridge financial and skills gaps their clients faced in order to help their users through the tough times earlier. Now the vendor pipelines have started to look healthier as pent up demand has started to come through, though cautious spending still remains the call of the day. Meanwhile, vendors are also gearing up with partner programs and targeted solutions aligned to businesses and industries to ensure they are ready to tap the market growth.

“Business has regained confidence now and we are seeing mission-critical projects and priority projects linked to business needs to lead the way in the infrastructure management software market in APEJ. However, the crisis has modified the manner in which projects are returning. A high focus on business value, return on investment (ROI), and shorter, modular type projects are more typical,” said Daphne Chung, Senior Research Manager of IDC’s Asia/Pacific Infrastructure Software, Domain Research Group.

Vendors have also focused on themes such as virtualization, optimization and data centers during this period of time. IDC notes that while mergers and acquisitions have slowed in pace, more strategic partnerships and initiatives such as those created by Cisco, EMC and VMware have been implemented to target datacenters.

Figure 1 below provides a snapshot of the outlook of the infrastructure software market in the sub-region form factor. Clearly the Greater China (GCG) region and South East Asia and India (SEA & India) region, driven by large emerging markets such as the PRC and India are where the key growth opportunities will remain for infrastructure management software in terms of both Storage Software, and Systems and Network Management Software (SNMS). However, the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) region, while the market is relatively more mature, is expected to show good growth particularly in the storage software markets where growth will be driven by more advanced functionality requirements.

Figure 1. Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Infrastructure Management Software Market Opportunities

Figure 1

Source: IDC Asia/Pacific Semiannual Software Tracker, 1H 2009