This IDC study is a natural successor to Worldwide Business Rules Management Systems 2005-2009 Forecast and 2004 Vendor Shares. 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 document provides 2005 vendor shares, historical revenue for 2003 and 2004, and a revised forecast through 2010 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 2005, continuing the trend established in 2004. Growth in 2005 easily surpassed 2004 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: Fair Isaac and ILOG. These two vendors together account for nearly 50% of the BRMS market revenue.

"The strong role that 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."