BEA leads app server market: IDC

FRAMINGHAM: BEA Systems Inc. and International Business Machines Corp.

dominated the sizzling application server market in 2000, according to a study

released on Monday by research firm International Data Corp.

BEA captured 18 per cent of the market's revenues, while IBM was second with

15 per cent, and Sun Microsystems Inc. was third with 8 per cent, according to

the study. The software serves as a foundation on which programmers build their

applications.

Despite expectations that it would moderate from the 110 per cent rate, the

application server software market grew by 128 per cent in 2000, according to

the study.

"It's difficult to overstate the significance of this growth rate,"

Steve Garone, IDC vice president of application development and deployment

research, said in a statement. "When a market reaches the level of maturity

that the ASSP market reached in 1999, annual growth usually slows, not

accelerates."

In 2000 the application server market grew to nearly $2.2 billion in

revenues, topping 1999 when the market grew to $957 million. IDC predicted the

market would continue the strong growth pace through 2005.

"Vendors need to provide an e-business platform that includes all the

functions necessary to build and deploy e-business applications, leveraging the

ASSP as the foundation layer," Garone said. "BEA and IBM both

understand this requirement."

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.