Enterprise Software Market Shaped By ‘Nexus of Forces’ – Gartner

IT research firm Gartner has issued a report in which it points to a new driver in the enterprise software environment.

It says that by 2017, new IT buying based on the ‘Nexus of Forces‘ will drive more than 26 percent of total enterprise software market revenue, up from 12 percent in 2012. Gartner says this represents more than $104 billion (£63m) of new worldwide enterprise software revenue from cloud, information, mobile and social initiatives.

Nexus of Forces

The report said technology providers must realize that the disruptive forces of cloud, information, mobile and social will reach mainstream status in 2014 and create new technology requirements, drive new purchasing and establish new competitive realities.

In the Nexus of Forces, information is the context for delivering enhanced social and mobile experiences, while the cloud enables delivery of information and functionality to users and systems. The intertwining of these systems creates what Gartner calls the “Nexus of Forces.”

While the use of collaboration technologies, data analytics, mobile devices and software as a service (SaaS) have been in effect for more than a decade, their adoption and popularity have increased significantly over the last few years.

“While there has been a great deal of excitement from the vendor community regarding cloud, information, mobile, social, and other forces and technologies, adoption in organisations and businesses has yet to catch up with the hype,” Tom Eid, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement. “Adoption trends of new technologies frequently take many years before reaching maturity, stability and broad market usage. The nexus should be seen as a development and design philosophy rather than as a packaged product.”

The report predicted emphasis over the next few years would be on providing enterprise-class support for mobile data and applications, rising on top of the existing enterprise mobile architectures.

This will be driven by key technologies such as enterprise mobile management systems (EMMSs), mobile containers, enterprise application stores and mobile collaboration.

Social Collaboration

When it comes to cloud-based services, more comprehensive and mature usage of cloud-based offerings is more strategic and frequently represented by long-term projects to transform technology access and use with oversight and funding from IT management.

Turning to social media and collaboration technology, Gartner said IT managers need to work with their users so that social and collaboration software blends naturally with the tasks they need to carry out every day.

“For organisations that are looking to move from an initial or trial phase to a richer experience and more sophisticated stage of usage, emphasis shifts to focusing on collaboration in the context of work activities,” the report noted.

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Originally published on eWeek.