BANGALORE, INDIA: Led by strong growth in the number of small and mid-sized (SMB) customers that IBM Rational added during the first half of 2008, the IBM Rational software business has grown significantly in India. Analyst firm, Gartner, Inc., has ranked IBM as the worldwide market share leader in the application development marketplace based on total software revenue for 2007.

According to Gartner, this marks the seventh consecutive year that IBM maintained its leadership in the application development software market.

A recent report by Evans Data Corporation on Indian Software Developers' Market indicates a very healthy and growing software development industry in India. According to the report, the number of software developers in India is forecast to grow at about 23 percent per year over the next few years growing from 1.8M in 2008 to 2.7M in 2010. This growth in number of developers along with increased awareness and traction around quality assurance, testing, and configuration management are the biggest factors which are driving the growth of application development and the quality lifecycle tools market in the country.

"IBM has created a true development powerhouse, and India is an important market for us. The customer base in India has been expanding rapidly and we see a lot of adoption of IBM Rational software in India. The System Integrators and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have been choosing IBM's software development offerings to help companies become more nimble, as they are using an increasingly geographically-dispersed and virtual workforce to remain competitive", said, Pradeep Nair, Director, Software Group, IBM India/ South Asia.

For many organizations, delivery of software is a critical element of their business, whether this is in support of their internal systems or the creation of software or system products that represent their core business. Organizations are growing and seeking to gain better performance from this critical element and they are looking to IBM Rational software to drive business value. Some of the customers that Rational added in the first half of 2008 include Max New York Life Insurance, Nucleus Software, Samsung Electronics, Robert Bosch, Apollo Hospitals, Persistent Systems, IFlex to name a few.

"With its new Rational Software, Persistent Systems can now design and build robust software architectures. These tools increase the efficiency of the product lifecycle, and offer advanced functionality, performance and reliability for the client's software development environment. This enhances customer satisfaction and helps attract new customers," said, Sudhir Alekar, Vice President - Business Development, Persistent Systems Ltd.

As a part of its continued efforts to improve accessibility and build a pipeline of new skills in the global marketplace, IBM recently announced certification testing on 22 Rational software products available to university students at minimal cost, expanding opportunities for both employers and IT Professional worldwide. India and China are the first two markets to take the advantage of discounted online certification testing for IBM Rational software tools. The new program has been launched in India and China at more than 2,100 institutions.

As a leader in the applications development market, IBM will be hosting India's largest technology event - Rational Software Development Conference in Bangalore along with seven other cities between August 28 and August 29. The conference is expected to attract over three times the number of software professionals across the industries when compared to the previous years. The main focus of the conference this year will be team productivity, enduring quality and organizational effectiveness. The conference will witness key note sessions by industry leaders and IBM experts along with user experiences being shared by customers to enhance knowledge about the current and future software development tools in the future.