IT management software sales soar

Sales of IT management software grew by 11.4 per cent last year to $6.2bn, according to new data from analyst firm Gartner.

The result stands out in the enterprise IT market where spending is flat or showing only single-digit growth.

The growth is fuelled by the need for IT organisations to manage distributed computing systems and grids, seeking to make it easier to manage applications, configurations and assets.

"IT departments are trying to do everything they can to reduce costs and protect the assets they already have," Laurie Wurster, a principal software analyst with Gartner told vnunet.com.

Although IBM holds the lead in the overall IT management software space, the company depends heavily on its mainframe business which makes up 76 per cent of revenues.

IBM commands 31.4 per cent of the market, more than double that of CA's Unicenter (14.5 per cent). The top five vendor list is completed by BMC (7.8 per cent), HP Openview (6.6 per cent) and Microsoft (3.5 per cent).

The fast growing segment of management software for distributed systems, however, is dominated by a slew of small start-ups offering best-of-breed applications that solve a narrow set of problems.

These 50 to 60 vendors account for $718m in sales. IBM still is the largest single vendor in this segment ($478.5m), followed closely by HP ($409m).

With 10 vendors being acquired or merging in the past year, the management software market is undergoing a consolidation wave.

Larger vendors have more appeal because they can offer suites at a discount, Wurster explained. But she warned that some suites have lost the homogeneity between products as a result of the acquisition spree.