Western Europe Web Services Market Analysis, 2002-2007

In this study

How fast will Web services opportunity develop, and which will be the largest vertical and size class opportunities? Is Web services a long-term trend? This study details the forecast for Western Europe spending on hardware, software, and services used to implement Web services projects in each of seven industries and three enterprise size classes. The total Western European Web services opportunity will grow from $108 million in 2002 to $7.8 billion in 2007, giving a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 135%.

According to James Weir, senior analyst with the European Services Group, and Nathaniel Martinez, research manager with the European Software Group, "The Web services opportunity in Europe is primed for rapid growth. Hardware, software, and services vendors need to take advantage of the Web services standards."

Although Web services is in the early stage of customer adoption, it is clear that this new ebusiness architecture has the potential to become the dominant distributed computing architecture. Based on behavioral simulations models, IDC expects the following:

The current forecast of Web services adoption is based on a survey of enterprises completed in 2002. These Web services forecast are a product of the IDC Web Services Adoption Model. The model simulates the adoption of Web services projects and forecasts numerous segments simultaneously, including feedback among segments.

The "dynamic assumption" of the model is that all enterprises in the universe are qualified to become prospects and all will eventually adopt Web services. The timing for adoption is the question. IDC believes that because Web services is such a fundamental shift, the adoption will be similar, among all sizes of enterprises, to the near universal adoption of the PC, networking, and the connection to the Internet.