IDC Expects Life-Cycle Software Services Model to Undergo Metamorphosis
Worldwide Market to Double from $82 Billion in 1998 to $164 Billion by 2003
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A cyclone of growth will hit the life-cycle software services (LCS) market, leaving a mass of revenues and a redefined delivery model in its aftermath. International Data Corporation (IDC) reports the worldwide LCS market will accumulate $164.4 billion in revenues in 2003, up from $82.4 billion in 1998. Further, many of the same factors that are driving this revenue growth will cause whirlwind changes in the traditional LCS delivery model.
''The life-cycle software services market is being profoundly affected by a range of IT environmental, market, and business conditions,'' said Chris Hoffman, director of IDC's U.S./Worldwide Software Services research. ''These changes will transform the life-cycle services delivery model into a wholly new services framework with enhanced characteristics, capabilities, and competencies for successfully delivering world-class services across complex enterprise IT environments to demanding end users in the next millennium.''
The LCS model currently consists of consulting, implementation, operations, support, and training services for packaged software. Historically, these services have involved sequential project structuring and execution, on-site delivery, extended time frames to completion, and time/materials-based pricing methods. Some of the major changes that IDC expects from the new paradigm include mission-critical/high-availability foundational methodologies, productized services formats, standardized delivery processes, repeatable and personalized solutions, built-in ''best practice'' knowledge, remote delivery infrastructure, and many others. Under this new paradigm, standard delivery processes will equip service providers with a highly flexible and interchangeable infrastructure, enabling repeatable solutions and significantly speeding up delivery of the services. Complex IT services solutions for packaged software will be conceived, ordered, and deployed within weeks, days, and even minutes.
''Users don't have the luxury of time,'' Hoffman said. ''The old life-cycle services model, which frequently involved six or more months to project completion, is no longer appropriate. The new model will provide a lifeline of continuous service delivery to customers by providing real just-in-time, knowledge-based, best state, and continuously delivered IT services for optimizing client application and process environments and maximizing the strategic and tactical value that clients derive from these systems in order to achieve a competitive advantage.''
IDC recently published The Metamorphosis of Life-Cycle Software Services: The Emerging Lifeline Model (IDC #B19186). This report examines the evolution of the life-cycle services model into what IDC terms the ''lifeline'' model, sizes the market by service activity, discusses market drivers, analyzes the emerging paradigm and its characteristics, makes recommendations for vendors, and includes competitive analysis of nine vendors and profiles of Baan, Computer Associates, J.D. Edwards, Sybase, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Sun. To view the report's complete table of contents, please visit idc.com and search for 19186. For more information or to order the report, please contact Cheryl Toffel at 1-800-343-4952 extension 4389 or by email at ctoffel@idc.com.
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