"At one level, the types of applications enterprises use in 2006 will not seem so different from those used in 1996 or even 1986," stated Mark Levitt, research vice president, Collaborative Computing, Composite Applications and the Enterprise Workplace. "We expect the applications markets to continue to grow and be highly active because of the slowly, but ever-improving ability of applications to help organizations use technology to be more effective and agile without requiring business users to be even more expert in navigating their way through IT solutions."
Headlines for IDC's top ten predictions for the applications markets in 2006 include:
Application Platforms Will Begin to Shift to Those Supplied by the Largest Applications Vendors
Enterprise Applications Heat Up in the Midmarket – The Upcoming Battle for the Global 1000+
Adoption of Collaborative Product Life-Cycle Management Is Rising
Task-Based Human Capital Management Takes Off
Global Players Go Local with Acquisitions in Asia/Pacific
CRM Becomes Democratized
CRM Finally Goes Mobile
Call Center and Customer Service Consolidation Begins
Voice Speaks Out Within Collaboration
Enterprise Workplace Moves Out of Technology and into "Composite Lite" Solutions
The study, Top Ten Predictions for 2006: Applications (IDC #34800), presents IDC's top 10 predictions for the applications markets in 2006. IDC's applications analysts in North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific collaborated to identify the key trends that will affect application platforms, enterprise applications, product life-cycle management (PLM), human capital management (HCM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration, and enterprise workplace application vendors and products in North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, and worldwide in 2006.