SOA market passes $2 billion mark, whatever that means

Research and Markets has just issued its latest assessment of the SOA market, and estimates the worldwide SOA market will grow from an estimated $2 billion in 2007 to more than $9 billion by 2014.

What, exactly, is the "SOA market?" The market research firm defines it as a foundation product set of "SOA engines and SOA adapters and integration broker components" -- the middleware infrastructure.

This is a market that's tough to measure. Operating systems and CRM and ERP products are self-contained in neat packages, but SOA tends to be all over the place. It's middleware products, but it's also governance, it's services, it's interfaces, it's development tools, it's frameworks, it's all related applications.

The report also declared IBM the winner in the SOA race so far, estimating it dominates with 64% of the market, and the rest divided between 12 other vendors "with measurable market share, none of whom have even been able to garner as much as 8% of the market." Research and Markets credits IBM's integration products andrelated services.