The enterprise applications (EA) software market in the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan, posed only a moderate growth at 5.1% in 2013, as enterprises were more cautious about their investments, said research company IDC.
The EA market grew 9% during 2012.
Although organizations were keen in upgrading existing back-office applications to embrace the "third platform technologies" in 2013 -- namely cloud, analytics, mobility, and social -- enterprises have been spending watchfully, and tech deployments had been largely ad hoc in nature.
Critical driver for enterprise applications growth
"The third platform technologies, especially cloud, will be a critical driver for enterprise applications growth in APeJ. Enterprises are moving from an ad hoc deployment of cloud-based applications and other third platform technologies, to a phase of strategic implementation," said Sabharinath Bala, research manager of IDC's Asia/Pacific enterprise application software research.
"This new era of digital transformation and the speed of innovation of Asian businesses is expected to bring the market back on track in 2014 and through the forecast period."