Application Infrastructure Middleware Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The application infrastructure middleware market was valued at USD 38064 million in 2020 and is expected to reach a value of USD 59708.5 million by 2026, register a CAGR of 7.31% over the forecast period 2021 - 2026. The application infrastructure middleware market has been primarily growing, owing to the wider technology trends, including migration to cloud platforms and services, higher demand for near-real-time data and analytics, a rapid increase of Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints, and the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI).

Key Highlights

• Mobility among consumers, as well as businesses, is an ongoing trend towards increasing employee-consumer interaction and increased operational efficiency across multiple devices. About 67% of the workforce is expected to adopt its own devices (BYOD policy) for work, this further emphasizes the need for mobile middleware for mobile, enterprise data security, remote device, and remote data access management.
• The increasing adoption of IoT devices in both enterprises and consumer space is increasing significantly. With the advent of global adoption of 5G network by 2021, the number of IoT devices is expected to increase significantly. According to Ericsson, by the end of 2019, global smartphone subscription stood at 5.6 billion which is expected to reach 7.4 billion by 2025.
• As public cloud settles in as a mainstream deployment option, more enterprises are expected to adopt the public cloud to migrate, rebuild, or build new mission-critical customer-centric applications and assets, which typically requires complex integration and orchestration, which increases the need for middleware solutions.
• However, a major challenge to the market growth has been the presence of open-source software, coupled with the failure of large vendors to deliver PaaS offerings to businesses.
• The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a short-term increase in demand, owing to the increased usage of API and other services from distributed infrastructure. This is expected to influence a significant growth in the demand over the next few years, as the number of enterprises adopting digital infrastructure is expected to increase.

Key Market Trends

Cloud Deployment is Expected to Hold the Largest Share

• The modern cloud application infrastructure has evolved to provide better efficiency and scalability than existing on-premise deployment. The growing trend towards cloud services and the innovation in IoT further help boost investments in modern application infrastructure and middleware.
• Application infrastructure middleware is used in the context of public, private, or hybrid cloud computing for cloud enablement of existing and new applications. For instance, it is possible to turn existing custom applications into Software as a Service application with all the complex software architecture handled by platform middleware.
• The robust rate of the adoption of cloud services is creating an integration challenge for enterprises across the globe using older on-premise services, such as enterprise service bus (ESB) and BPMs, as they were not designed to handle cloud integration.
• However, among large enterprises, the departments are now being empowered to purchase, install, and utilize their own software on an ad hoc basis, especially in the case of SaaS solutions which often requires real-time integration, which is driving the market forward.
• Cloud-based solutions, such as iPaaS, have microservice architecture, which, by nature, provides high scalability, low latency, and high performance. Therefore, the growth of this segment is expected to be faster than that of the on-premise segment. Moreover, It is expected that after the outbreak of COVID-19 outbreak slowdown, demand for cloud infrastructure services and spending on specialised software is expected to grow.

North America Occupies the Largest Market Share

• North America holds a majority share of the market that has been bolstered by the growing role of IoT and hybrid cloud among the significant revenue generating end-user industries of the region.
• IoT Platform vendors have a strong foothold in the region, which contributes to the growth of the market. Some of them include IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation PTC Inc., and Cisco Systems Inc., among others. The vendors are continuously investing in R&D capability to develop IoT platforms with enhanced functionality. For instance, in 2018, Microsoft announced its commitment to invest USD 5 billion in IoT and an intelligent edge. In the last 12 months, the company launched more than 100 new services and features on its Azure IoT platform.
• Banks in the United States are shifting towards cloud computing to drive digital transformation. For instance, Bank of America tied up with Microsoft Cloud as part of its digital transformation to help deliver new business efficiencies, support digital culture change, and to meet customer needs in a better way.
• The recent outbreak of coronavirus in significant countries is expected to have a short-term increase in demand owing to the increased usage of API and other services from distributed infrastructure across various industries. With the increasing number of enterprises adopting digital infrastructure, the demand for AIM is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period.​

Competitive Landscape

The application infrastructure middleware market is highly competitive and it appears to be consolidated owing to the fact that the market landscape is defined by software leaders, such as IBM, Oracle, and Redhat that are known to hold a major market share. The dominance of these players in the market is expected to continue, owing to their brand image and expertise in the most demanding areas of applications. Cloud has been a noteworthy factor that has been separating market share gainers from share losers.

• March 2020 - Software AG announced Swift Labs, Canada-based wireless and IoT product design partner, joined its PowerUp Partner Program. Through the strategic partnership, customers will gain access to Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT platform and Swift Labs’ cellular hardware platform powered by “Design Blocks”, to help simplify and rapidly deploy IoT initiatives with the support of real-time, user-friendly operational dashboards and analytics.
• January 2020 - TIBCO and Enfo formed a strategic partnership with reselling exclusivity in the Nordics and Baltics. TIBCO Software Inc empowers its customers to connect, unify, and confidently predict business outcomes, solving the world's most complex data-driven challenges. Combining knowledge and broad customer base in the Nordics with TIBCO's leading software solutions and network will benefit both Enfo and TIBCO customers.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support