According to CCID Consulting, the total volume of China's management software market reached RMB8.5 billion at the end of 2007. The growth rate slowed down and the market was maturing.

Development of China's management software market showed the following features in 2007: The management software market has already entered the industrialization stage; Driven by IT application demands of SMBs, SaaS model products won the favor of mass SMBs; Market competition to contend for SMBs will be fierce. According to CCID Consulting, in the upcoming years, the trend of development of China's management software market can be summarized as follows: Demands of clients for total solutions will be on the increase and vendors will integrate their resources to meet the specific demands of clients for total solutions; The increasing importance of IT services will result in the emerging of a great number of specialized IT service providers.

Soft landing of SOA international standard and better opportunities for the development of China's middleware market

The total size of China's middleware products market reached RMB1.28 billion in 2007 with a year-on-year growth rate of 19.7%. The market is in a stage of rapid development. More and more middleware vendors are adopting SOA as part of their future strategy. The release of SOA development standard this year will usher in unprecedented opportunities for the development of China's middleware market.

China's middleware market is still in a start-off stage and it promises enormous market opportunities and room for development. In the year of 2007, China's middleware market showed the following features: Demand became increasingly diversified; Application models were more integrated; and the soft landing of SOA international standards. CCID Consulting projects that in the next five years, China's middleware market will grow at an annual composite growth rate of 16.4%, and size of the market will reach RMB2.74 billion by 2012. China's middleware market will show the following features in the upcoming years: Dominance of SOA and the surfacing importance of EDA; Improving channel architecture and expanding demands on system integrators.

Extensive activation of IT service in China, but poor service-rendering capability in some regions

CCID Consulting's statistics have shown that China's IT service market has already entered the maturity stage and its value has basically been recognized by clients. However, nearly 41% clients say they are not clear about the value of IT service. To a certain extent, this reveals that clients are perplexed about the criteria for the value of IT service. The proportion of software in China's network security products will increase and network security service will see dynamic growth

The total sales revenue of China's network security products market is expected to reach RMB6.687 billion in 2007, growing by 20.3% over that of 2006. The market has maintained a strong moment of stable growth. CCID Consulting forecasts that the size of China's network security products market will grow further in the next five years and will reach RMB15.6 billion by 2012. However, the market growth will show a flat slowing down trend and the market will mature further. The market will develop in these directions: Rapid rise of security service demands and increased proportion of software in security products; Expansion in Mobile applications and related securityproducts will emerge; The range of competition will expand further, as security products vendors integrate and the degree of market concentration will gradually increase.

The latest research of CCID Consulting shows that the size of China's OA and collaboration software market is expected to reach RMB2.494 billion in 2007, growing year-on-year by 20.8%. The market was still in a stage of rapid growth although the growth rate slowed down slightly. Customer demands were more rational and the ecology of the industrial chain was maturing.