The Swedish market for software tools experienced a healthy growth of 5.6% in 2005 (compared to 3.6% in 2004) to reach a value of Euro 543m. Growth in the market was driven by strong growth in database software as well as in the market for software quality and life-cycle management.

"We expect to see a relatively stable growth scenario in the application development and deployment software market over the next five years, although the forecast is slightly more aggressive short term", says Per Andersen, Managing Director of IDC Nordic. "Right now a number of key factors are contributing to growth in software tools, in particular rollout of SOA and the need for data compliance and business analytics".