Services integration market to grow at 4.6% a year and reach $89.9 bln by 2009

According to IDC, the worldwide services integration (SI) market will experience moderate growth in 2005 marking a long-awaited recovery. The SI market is emerging from its recent downturn to a changed market environment, in which the bargaining power sits firmly with customers, global sourcing strategies are the norm, and the standardization of technology is proliferating. IDC expects the worldwide SI services market to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6% over the full five-year forecast period ending in 2009, and reach $89.9 bln.

The worldwide SI services market is expected to experience moderate growth in 2005, with sustained recovery in 2006 and 2007. The decline in SI revenue reflects some vendors' shift in strategy toward outsourcing in lieu of SI services or larger instability and reorganization of the company. Large-scale transformational outsourcing deals with a significant SI component still represent only a fraction of the market at the current time. SIs may increasingly find themselves in the role of systems aggregators, which manage the process of integration and its business processes requirements and impacts, rather than their traditional role as systems integrators.