Technology innovation and business disruption are changing the software market today. Cloud computing is blurring the line between applications and services, and smart solutions are combining hardware with software into new, purpose-engineered solutions. We are happy to announce that we have launched our Forrester Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2010, to predict and quantify the future of the software market and help IT vendors to tap into the insights from approximately 2,500 IT decision-makers across North America and Western Europe.

The survey will provide insights on the strategic direction and spending plans of enterprises from very small businesses to global enterprises, segmented by industry and country. In comparison with last year’s survey, we significantly boosted the sample size this year for the energy (oil and gas, utilities, and mining) and healthcare industries; we’ll be able to provide an in-depth analysis for these industries along with retail, financial services, high tech, and other industries.

Key themes for this year’s software survey include the following topics:

• Cloud computing. Besides a 360-degree overview on current and future adoption rates of software-as-a-service (SaaS) for different software applications, we are going much deeper this year and have asked IT decision-makers about their cloud strategy for application replacement as well as for different data and transaction types.
• Integrated information technology. Purpose-engineered solutions combining hardware with software are promising higher performance and faster implementation times. But do IT users really buy into single-vendor strategies?
• Business intelligence. Business intelligence (BI) solutions are among the fastest growing software markets. But what is the future of BI as a standalone market between the rise of embedded BI and new, advanced analytics?
• Mobile strategy. Mobility is a key element in most enterprise IT strategies. Which applications require mobile support the most, and what are companies doing when standard solutions don’t meet their needs?
• Software buying preferences. IT vendors need to understand the channel preferences of their customers as well as changing trends in licensing and pricing in different target markets.

And, of course, we’ll continue to ask traditional questions around implementation plans, custom development, and preferred vendors.

Clients of Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology can expect the final software survey data results at the beginning of November, and we will publish some of the key findings in a Q4 Forrester report. You will see Forrester’s Forrsights data pop up in this blog from time to time, but if you’d like more info right now — or want to check out some of our other surveys, e.g., on hardware or services — visit the Forrester Forrsights section of our Web site.

Let us know what data you need to support your strategy!

Kind regards,

Holger Kisker