Worldwide Business Process Automation Deployment Software 2005-2009 Forecast: This Billion-Dollar Baby Has Legs and Reach

This IDC study is the initial 2005–2009 forecast for the business process automation (BPA) deployment software market, a "competitive market" as defined in the IDC Software Research Group (SRG) taxonomy. It updates relevant market drivers and inhibitors. The BPA deployment software market measures software that can be used by nonprofessional developers and that is instantiated in a single combination development/deployment product (among other characteristics). This study updates the forecast and assumptions table for the BPA deployment software market released in October and January 2004, respectively. These changes are driven by results of a demand-side survey conducted in North America in August 2004 and an annual review of supply-side market dynamics for over 50 relevant BPA deployment software suppliers.

"Calendar 2004 was the billion-dollar year IDC has been predicting it would be," said Dennis Byron, VP, Business Process Automation and Deployment Software Research, IDC. "We can now safely say that this is a real market and not an ERP or operating system extension, but we will continue to watch the growth quarter by quarter to see if the momentum can be maintained on the way to $3 billion. There are still a few very large software suppliers that don't want to see the software market develop this way because it gives the user more control than the supplier."