This IDC study is one of two natural successors to Worldwide Model-Driven Development and Business Rules Management Systems 2004-2008 Forecast Update and 2003 Vendor Shares: Year-End Review (IDC #32780, January 2005). IDC's expanding coverage of business rules management systems (BRMS) and model-driven development has prompted us to separate each of these topics into its own study.

This IDC study provides 2004 vendor shares, historical revenue for 2002 and 2003, and a revised forecast through 2009 for the BRMS market, with segmentations by primary geographic region and operating environment. Market drivers for the BRMS market are also discussed. This study provides profiles of leading vendors and identifies the characteristics that vendors will need to be successful in the future.

The BRMS market sustained reasonably strong growth in 2004, continuing the trend established in 2003. Although 2004 growth was not up to the standard set in 2003, this growth did come very close to meeting our target and enabled the BRMS market to stand out as a growth leader with the application development and deployment family of markets. Revenue in the worldwide BRMS market is concentrated with the top 2 vendors: ILOG and Fair Isaac. These two vendors together account for nearly 50% of the BRMS market revenue.

"The strong role that business rules management systems (BRMSs) will have in building out the application infrastructure platforms is an important factor in the high growth forecast for the BRMS market," said Stephen D. Hendrick, group vice president for IDC's Application Development and Deployment research group. "The key position of business rules relative to data, events, business state, and processes means that business rules and their associated engines will soon become a focal point for the next generation of application development."