European software development is gearing up for a period of change and growth, as a number of trends are showing, according to IT Europa.
The research house's European Software and Solutions Summit to be held on March 25th (Lancaster Hotel, London) will examine some of these changes and assess the likely impact on the European industry.
Among the sponsoring companies leading the discussions will be a number of industry's most innovative and influential organisations including HP, Interoute, Oracle, Verizon, ConnectWise, Autotask, Coverity, LabTech, Logi Analytics and ISVWorld.
According to Gartner's latest forecasts, Enterprise Software is currently the fastest growing sector in IT, with worldwide spending predicted to grow 5.5% this year - more than double the industry average and outstripping the pace of growth of even the devices sector.
But behind the headline growth lie some fundamental shifts in the way software is being developed, marketed and delivered, says IT Europa.
Reports from the judges of the European IT and Software Awards 2015 on the finalists announced last week, show that the trend towards software development for specific vertical markets has continued. The ISV categories showed increasingly sophisticated projects, often with the external developers buying-in packaged solutions for aspects of security and management, especially in mobile-enabled applications.
"The development world has moved up a gear," said John Garratt, chair of the judges and editor of IT Europa. "And we are seeing the results of the move to cloud and Software-as-a-Service that started to make an impact last year."
There is still a level of uncertainty about future directions, however, with the required level of commitment to a platform to offer multi-device solutions concerning some software companies, he thinks, based on conversations with developers.
The European Software and Solutions Summit (EUSSS) event will set out to find answers to the questions ISVs, enterprise developers, Solution Providers, vendors and channels have on the move 'beyond the cloud' and how business models have to change in an increasingly digitalised and revenue/opex-based software world in which Cloud and XaaS (Everything-as-a-Service) delivery models dominate.
Under the overall theme of 'Beyond the Cloud - Creating competitive advantage by driving Digitalised Business', the European Software & Solutions Summit 2015, which incorporates the European ISV Convention, will explore the new business concepts, models and structures enabled by this new digitalised world and the role the software vendors, solution/service providers and application developers play in their development.