Competitive Analysis Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software 2013 Vendor Shares Chandana Gopal IDC OPINION Managed file transfer (MFT) software posted 5.1% growth in 2013 to $794.3 million. The Americas was the largest region and grew 2.0% to $401.4 million, EMEA grew 7.7% to $278.3 million, and Asia/Pacific declined slightly with -0.3% growth to $114.6 million primarily due to the exchange rate fluctuation. A managed file transfer software functional market was introduced in the IDC taxonomy in 2013, and this market will be tracked in the application development and deployment primary market. In addition: System-centric software, the largest segment of the MFT market, grew 5.5% to $667.9 million. IBM, Axway, and SWIFT are the largest vendors in this segment. The people-centric MFT market shrank 0.7% to $84.7 million. We expect this market to continue to be disrupted by business file sync-and-share software in future years. Extreme file transfer is the smallest but the most dynamic segment of the MFT market. It grew 11.8% to almost $41.7 million in 2013. Aspera, one the largest vendors of extreme file transfer software, was acquired by IBM in January 2014. IBM continues to be the largest vendor in MFT, growing 12.0% in 2013. It accounts for 32% of the total market. The next largest vendor is Axway, with a 6.9% growth in the market and 11.2% share. SWIFT is the third-largest vendor. It grew 4.5% to $73.9 million and accounted for 9.3% of the market. Together, the top 3 vendors accounted for 52.4% of total spending. In 2013, we introduced Saison Information Systems in the MFT market, and it was the fourthlargest player in the worldwide market and the largest player in APJ. As the digital supply chain grows, increasing volumes of data and higher security requirements are causing enterprises to adopt MFT solutions. Growth drivers include the push toward straight-through processing and the elimination of manual touch points in handling files. However, vendors are constantly being challenged to lower per-file transmission costs. MFT offerings are increasingly incorporating file orchestration capabilities and are extending their reach inside the firewall into back-end applications. This is especially relevant for vendors like Oracle and Software AG with strong application integration portfolios that have launched MFT products and can now offer end-to-end file orchestration and visibility. October 2014, IDC #252028
IN THIS STUDY This IDC study examines the managed file transfer software market for the period from 2009 to 2013. Worldwide market size is provided for 2013, with trends from 2009. Revenue and market share of the leading vendors are provided for 2013. This study also sizes three submarkets: system-centric (process-centric) file transfer, people-centric (ad hoc) file transfer, and extreme (high-speed, largesized) file transfer. The vendor shares and competitive analysis contained herein update those found in Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software 2012 Vendor Shares (IDC #242173, July 2013). Methodology See the Methodology in the Learn More section for a description of the data collection and analysis employed in this study. In addition, please note the following: The information contained in this study was derived from IDC's Software Tracker database as of April 2014. All numbers in this document may not be exact due to rounding. For more information on IDC's software definitions and methodology, see IDC's Software Taxonomy, 2014 (IDC #249238, June 2014). Managed File Transfer Software Market Definition MFT software is a class of integration middleware that is used by enterprises and business users to: Comply with regulations covering the security of data in transit Move files in batch between two or more systems Exchange files between partners Deliver large digital media over the network MFT software provides secure and guaranteed delivery of a file or set of files from a source to a target over a network. The file transfer can be from one enterprise to another directly or via a file transfer service provider or within an enterprise between systems, datacenters, and locations. Beyond the ability to deliver files from source to target, secure delivery, guaranteed delivery, and auditability are the three common characteristics that separate MFT software from free FTP or other types of data movement software. 2014 IDC #252028 1
SITUATION OVERVIEW The Managed File Transfer Software Market in 2013 The MFT software market grew 5.1% in 2013 to $794.3 million. Table 1 and Figure 1 show the three MFT segments by size and market share. The system-centric segment was the largest in 2013, accounting for 84.1% of the market, followed by people-centric segment with 10.7%, and extreme transfer accounting for 5.2% of the total market. TABLE 1 Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software Revenue by Segment, 2009 2013 ($M) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012 2013 Growth (%) 2013 Share (%) System-centric file transfer 518.6 538.7 614.0 632.9 667.9 5.5 84.1 People-centric file transfer 46.6 67.6 80.2 85.3 84.7-0.7 10.7 Extreme file transfer 20.1 22.9 25.9 37.3 41.7 11.8 5.2 Total 585.4 629.1 720.2 755.5 794.3 5.1 100.0 2014 IDC #252028 2
FIGURE 1 Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software Revenue Share by Segment, 2013 The MFT market grew 5.1% in 2013 compared with 4.9% in 2012. System-centric MFT and extreme MFT saw relatively healthy growth rates of 5.5% and 11.8%, respectively, and people-centric MFT saw a decline of 0.7%. We attribute this primarily to the increased competition from file sharing services like Box and Dropbox. Extreme MFT grew 11.8% to $41.7 million. File sharing services emerged as a feature of people-centric file transfer and evolved to become an independent market. For more information on file sync-and-share services, see Worldwide File Synchronization and Sharing 2014 2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #251507, September 2014). This market includes vendors such as Box, Dropbox, Hightail, and Accellion. Hightail and Accellion, in particular, still provide customers with people-centric MFT in addition to file sharing services, and the people-centric revenue is listed in this study. There has been rapid growth in system-centric MFT with growing demand for offerings that support larger file sizes and offer orchestration capabilities within an organization's firewall. We have seen some consolidations and MFT product launches in 2013 and early 2014. Notable announcements include: IBM acquired Aspera, an extreme MFT software solution, in January 2014. Oracle launched Oracle Managed File Transfer as part of its SOA Suite 12c release. Software AG announced its MFT offering called webmethods Active Transfer. Saison launched HULFT Series, which is an offering that consolidates data integration, trading partner integration, MFT, and internal application integration. 2014 IDC #252028 3
Performance of Leading Vendors in 2013 Table 2 displays 2009 2013 worldwide revenue and 2013 growth and market share for managed file transfer vendors. With 32.0% market share, IBM is the largest vendor and had a strong 12.0% growth rate in 2013. It had launched QuickFile, its people-centric file transfer product, in 2012, but after acquiring Aspera, it has consolidated QuickFile into its IBM Aspera product group. IBM is offering Aspera On Demand, its high-performance server software, for the movement of extremely large files in and out of clouds, on IBM SoftLayer, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure, and Google Cloud. TABLE 2 Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software Revenue by Vendor, 2009 2013 ($M) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012 2013 Growth (%) 2013 Share (%) IBM 176.9 185.2 232.0 226.6 253.8 12.0 32.0 Axway 75.0 83.9 91.0 82.9 88.6 6.9 11.2 SWIFT 43.9 41.1 49.2 70.7 73.9 4.5 9.3 Saison Information Systems 39.3 43.3 49.4 52.6 51.4-2.2 6.5 Hightail 15.5 25.0 34.0 37.1 35.2-5.0 4.4 CA Technologies 30.8 31.4 30.7 29.9 29.1-2.8 3.7 Accellion 15.0 22.2 22.0 24.0 24.8 3.4 3.1 GlobalSCAPE 16.3 17.9 18.6 21.8 21.7-0.3 2.7 Primeur 17.2 13.7 17.5 20.7 20.5-1.3 2.6 Aspera 5.9 6.7 7.5 13.0 16.1 23.7 2.0 Signiant 10.6 11.6 12.8 16.6 17.0 2.2 2.1 Ipswitch 22.7 23.1 19.5 14.9 12.9-13.5 1.6 Attachmate 8.0 9.0 10.1 11.1 11.0-1.0 1.4 TIBCO 9.2 10.3 7.3 7.9 9.6 22.1 1.2 Attunity (RepliWeb) 9.2 9.4 9.1 10.7 9.4-11.8 1.2 SSH (Tectia) 11.5 12.1 10.1 9.0 8.0-11.1 1.0 GXS 2.3 2.2 2.3 2.5 2.3-10.4 0.3 SEEBURGER 0.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 2.0-0.5 0.3 Data Expedition 0.4 0.5 0.9 1.4 1.5 11.1 0.2 FileCatalyst 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.3 1.6 20.1 0.2 Subtotal 510.6 549.7 625.9 656.7 690.4 5.1 86.9 Other 74.8 79.5 94.2 98.8 103.9 5.1 13.1 Total 585.4 629.1 720.2 755.5 794.3 5.1 100.0 2014 IDC #252028 4
Axway is the second-largest vendor in MFT with 11.2% market share. Axway announced that it acquired Vordel in November 2012 to improve its capabilities in mobile, API, and identity management and has incorporated Vordel into its Axway 5 suite. Axway MFT revenue grew 6.9% in 2012 to $88.6 million as the company had stronger growth in North America in 2013. The third-largest vendor was SWIFT, a nonprofit provider of data services for financial institutions and corporate treasury departments. SWIFT's MFT revenue also grew 4.5% in 2013 due to 37% growth in the number of kilo-characters in files transferred on the company's network, tempered by falling per-file fees. SWIFT continues to serve its customers by lowering per-file costs year over year. The top 3 vendors (IBM, Axway, and SWIFT) accounted for 52.4% of the total in 2013. In 2013, we introduced Saison, a Japanese software vendor, that is the fourth-largest MFT provider. Taking out currency fluctuations, Saison had year-over-year growth of 10% in Japanese Yen but currency adjustments resulted in a -2.2% decline in USD. Saison has been a growing player in Japan and is rebranding itself and building out its partner channel to expand internationally, and we expect that it will become a major player in the coming years. Performance by Geographic Region in 2013 As Figure 2 and Table 3 indicate, Americas continues to be the largest MFT region with 50.5% of the market. EMEA follows with 35.0% and APJ with 14.4 % of the market. Growth rates of all regions was 2.0% (Americas), and 7.7% (EMEA) and -0.3% (APJ). FIGURE 2 Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software Revenue Share by Region, 2013 2014 IDC #252028 5
TABLE 3 Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software Revenue by Region, 2009 2013 ($M) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012 2013 Growth (%) 2013 Share (%) Americas 345.8 373.3 398.8 393.6 401.4 2.0 50.5 EMEA 175.6 183.8 216.1 258.3 278.3 7.7 35.0 Asia/Pacific (including Japan) 64.0 72.1 106.2 115.0 114.6-0.3 14.4 Total 585.4 629.1 721.1 766.9 794.3 3.6 100.0 Performance by MFT Segment in 2013 System-Centric File Transfer Software System-centric file transfer involves using software to automate the delivery or receipt of large files between systems. Functionality also may include system-generated delivery to a person or to a selfservice portal. The software is typically implemented peer to peer, where both the sender and the receiver use the same software or software standard, or gateway software, which sends and receives files on behalf of multiple standards and formats. System-centric file transfer may use third-party scheduling software to kick off delivery of a file or to find new files that have been delivered. Depending on delivery volumes, there are often monitoring solutions implemented to identify delivery problems. And there may be proxy configurations set up to ensure data is delivered outside the firewall in a manner that complies with an enterprise's security policies. Table 4 shows that this category is the largest segment of MFT software and grew 5.5% in 2013 to $667.9 million. IBM remains the largest vendor in system-centric file transfer software, with estimated revenue of $253.7 million and 38.0% share of the market. It is more than double the size of its closest competitor. The top 3 system-centric MFT vendors (IBM, Axway, and SWIFT) accounted for 61% of the systemcentric file transfer segment. 2014 IDC #252028 6
TABLE 4 Worldwide System-Centric File Transfer Software Revenue by Vendor, 2009 2013 ($M) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012 2013 Growth (%) 2013 Share (%) IBM 176.9 185.2 232.0 226.5 253.7 12.0 38.0 Axway 71.3 77.2 81.9 74.6 79.7 6.9 11.9 SWIFT 43.9 41.1 49.2 70.7 73.9 4.5 11.1 Saison Information Systems 39.3 43.3 49.4 52.6 51.4-2.2 7.7 CA Technologies 30.8 31.4 30.7 29.9 29.1-2.8 4.4 Primeur 17.2 13.7 17.5 20.7 20.5-1.3 3.1 GlobalSCAPE 14.4 16.4 16.7 19.6 19.6-0.3 2.9 Ipswitch 19.3 20.8 17.6 13.4 11.6-13.5 1.7 Attachmate 8.0 8.6 9.6 10.6 10.5-1.0 1.6 Attunity (RepliWeb) 9.2 9.4 9.1 10.7 9.4-11.8 1.4 TIBCO 8.3 9.3 6.9 7.5 9.1 22.1 1.4 SSH (Tectia) 11.5 12.1 10.1 9.0 8.0-11.1 1.2 GXS 2.3 2.2 2.3 2.5 2.3-10.4 0.3 SEEBURGER 0.0 0.0 0.9 1.8 1.8-0.5 0.3 Subtotal 452.4 470.6 533.7 550.1 580.5 5.5 86.9 Other 66.3 68.1 80.3 82.8 87.4 5.5 13.1 Total 518.6 538.7 614.0 632.9 667.9 5.5 100.0 People-Centric File Transfer Software Table 5 details the 2009 2013 vendor shares in the people-centric, or ad hoc, segment of the MFT software market. This segment shrank 0.7% to $84.7 million in 2013. This segment is distinguished by the need for an enterprise to better manage the delivery of large files among staff in an enterprise, among staff and external entities, and among people sending updates to a system. In this category, vendors offer combinations of portals, easy-to-use client software, cloud delivery services, appliances and integration with email systems, and other applications that produce large files that frequently need to be shared among groups of workers. 2014 IDC #252028 7
Hightail and Accellion continued to dominate the people-centric MFT market in 2013. However, this study includes revenue only from their ad hoc MFT offering and does not include file sharing revenue. See Worldwide File Synchronization and Sharing 2014 2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #251507, September 2014) for more information on spend in the file sharing market, which is disrupting people-centric MFT. TABLE 5 Worldwide People-Centric File Transfer Software Revenue by Vendor, 2009 2013 ($M) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012 2013 Growth (%) 2013 Share (%) Hightail 15.5 25.0 34.0 37.1 35.2-5.0 41.6 Accellion 15.0 22.2 22.0 24.0 24.8 3.4 29.2 Axway 3.8 6.3 8.6 7.9 8.4 6.9 9.9 GlobalSCAPE 1.9 1.5 1.9 2.2 2.2-0.3 2.6 Ipswitch 3.4 2.3 2.0 1.5 1.3-13.5 1.5 Attachmate 0.0 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.6-1.0 0.6 TIBCO 0.9 1.0 0.4 0.4 0.5 22.1 0.6 FileCatalyst 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 20.1 0.5 SEEBURGER 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.2-0.5 0.2 IBM 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 12.0 0.1 Subtotal 40.7 59.1 69.7 74.2 73.6-0.7 86.9 Other 6.0 8.5 10.5 11.2 11.1-0.7 13.1 Total 46.6 67.6 80.2 85.3 84.7-0.7 100.0 Extreme File Transfer Software Table 6 details the 2009 2013 vendor shares in the extreme file transfer segment of the MFT software market. Extreme file transfer software spending grew an estimated 11.8% in 2013 to 41.7 million. 2014 IDC #252028 8
TABLE 6 Worldwide Extreme File Transfer Software Revenue by Vendor, 2009 2013 ($M) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012 2013 Growth (%) 2013 Share (%) Signiant 10.6 11.6 12.8 16.6 17.0 2.2 40.8 Aspera 5.9 6.7 7.5 13.0 16.1 23.7 38.6 Data Expedition 0.4 0.5 0.9 1.4 1.5 11.1 3.6 FileCatalyst 0.6 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.2 20.1 2.9 Axway 0.0 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.4 6.9 1.1 Subtotal 17.5 20.0 22.5 32.4 36.2 11.8 86.9 Other 2.6 2.9 3.4 4.9 5.5 11.8 13.1 Total 20.1 22.9 25.9 37.3 41.7 11.8 100.0 Signiant and Aspera were the top 2 vendors in this category, which are both focused on the media and entertainment industry. Aspera was acquired by IBM in January 2014 and will be part of the IBM portfolio for the next year. IBM has embedded Aspera into IBM SoftLayer as part of its highperformance data synchronization infrastructure. In this segment, the size of a file may be too large to be delivered efficiently over a TCP/IP network. Security, network performance, and tight delivery deadlines mean that large file size and delivery speed are concurrent requirements. UDP transport protocol variants and parallelization over TCP networks are among the solutions offered by vendors in this segment. Extreme file transfer uses proprietary or enhanced protocols to deliver files over UDP or in parallel over TCP. By bypassing TCP, files are accelerated because they do not go through TCP errorcorrecting protocols. Instead, this software is deployed at either end of a delivery to handle error corrections. The client software, acting as a receiver, also tends to shape the speed of delivery based on network availability. Vendors like Signiant have started offering cloud-based deployment models for their software. The subscription-based model helps vendors approach smaller companies in the digital value chain that need to exchange very large files with business partners but do not want to invest in expensive software licenses. 2014 IDC #252028 9
FUTURE OUTLOOK Despite new product introductions on the system-centric side, MFT growth will continue to be a moderately paced market. The reason for the new product entrants, such as Software AG and Oracle, is the continuing investment by enterprises in fully featured integration suites, with MFT being one of the anchor pieces. Increasing volumes of file traffic and file sizes as well as demand for better data security has resulted in greater demand for commercial MFT solution. MFT, traditionally, is content agnostic and, as the name implies, focused on securely and reliably moving files from source to target. We are seeing more integration with orchestration middleware and file-oriented orchestration capabilities. Managed file transfer also plays an important part in 3rd Platform technologies particularly as it relates to big data and the Internet of things (IoT). Massive volumes of data are generated from endpoints and are transmitted as files. MFT is also commonly employed to exchange non-edi transactional documents with trading partners. The people-centric MFT segment continues to be disrupted by file sync-and-share services. Most major players in this market offer enterprise-class products that integrate with corporate email systems and allow users to seamlessly send and receive files that were previously limited by email capacity. Vendors like Box have also incorporated basic workflow capabilities into their offerings, and we expect to see this trend increasing in the future. ESSENTIAL GUIDANCE Enterprises are heavily focused on improving operational efficiency through greater automation of system-centric activities. MFT fits into this, and vendors with standalone MFT offerings will need to focus on interoperability with other elements of integration suites to ensure their products are part of a larger end-to-end process. This is especially true as cloud-to-could and cloud-to-datacenter synchronization continues to accelerate. In addition, we expect to see MFT used in conjunction with REST APIs to exchange files. This will require vendors to publish their own APIs to support emerging demand. On the people-centric side, there continues to be a need to send large files securely outside the context of file sync and share, particularly with secure email. Vendors should also consider integrating with common collaboration offerings to make it easier to send large files in a collaborative context. 2014 IDC #252028 10
LEARN MORE Related Research Worldwide File Synchronization and Sharing 2014 2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #251507, September 2014) Box Adoption Yields Security, Storage, and Collaboration Gains (IDC #250001, July 2014) Worldwide Managed File Transfer 2013 2017 Forecast (IDC #243302, September 2013) Worldwide Managed File Transfer Software 2012 Vendor Shares (IDC #242173, July 2013) BuyerPulse File Sharing and Collaboration Vendor Profile: Citrix ShareFile (IDC #241129, May 2013) Methodology The IDC software market sizing and forecasts are presented in terms of packaged software revenue. IDC uses the term commercial software to distinguish commercially available software from custom software. Commercial software is programs or codesets of any type commercially available through sale, lease, rental, or as a service. Commercial software revenue typically includes fees for initial and continued right-to-use commercial software licenses. These fees may include, as part of the license contract, access to product support and/or other services that are inseparable from the right-to-use license fee structure, or this support may be priced separately. Upgrades may be included in the continuing right of use or may be priced separately. All of these are counted by IDC as commercial software revenue. Commercial software revenue excludes service revenue derived from training, consulting, and systems integration that is separate (or unbundled) from the right-to-use license but does include the implicit value of software included in a service that offers software functionality by a different pricing scheme. It is the total commercial software revenue that is further allocated to markets, geographic areas, and operating environments. The worldwide software market includes all commercial software revenue across all functional markets or market aggregations. For further details, see IDC's Software Taxonomy, 2014 (IDC #249238, June 2014). The software revenue forecasts presented in IDC studies represent our best estimates and projections based on the following: Top-down forecast growth rates by IDC worldwide market analysts Current U.S. dollar exchange rates as of 4Q13 Bottom-up/company-level data collection for calendar year 2013 began in January 2014 with in-depth vendor surveys and analysis to develop detailed 2012 company models by market, geographic region, and operating environment. This activity will form the basis of vendor share, updated forecast, and competitive analysis studies that will be published later in the year. 2014 IDC #252028 11
Historical Market Values and Exchange Rates Historical market values presented here are as published in prior IDC documents based on the market taxonomies and current U.S. dollar exchange rates existing at the time the data was originally published. For markets other than the United States, these as-published values are therefore based on a different exchange rate each year. Please refer to IDC's regional research studies containing historical forecasts for multiple countries for more accurate regional growth in local currencies. Synopsis This IDC study examines the managed file transfer software market and submarkets for 2009 2013. Revenue for 2009 2013 and market share of leading vendors are provided in total and for the three segments system-centric, people-centric, and extreme file transfer. "We have seen an increasing amount of interest in MFT in part due to the huge increase in volumes of file traffic but also due to an increasing emphasis on data security," according to Chandana Gopal, research manager, BuyerPulse Analysis: Multi-Enterprise Integration. "Managed file transfer with orchestration capabilities that can enable straight-through processing of files will continue to grow." 2014 IDC #252028 12
About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make factbased decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. Global Headquarters 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 USA 508.872.8200 Twitter: @IDC idc-insights-community.com www.idc.com Copyright Notice This IDC research document was published as part of an IDC continuous intelligence service, providing written research, analyst interactions, telebriefings, and conferences. Visit www.idc.com to learn more about IDC subscription and consulting services. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit www.idc.com/offices. Please contact the IDC Hotline at 800.343.4952, ext. 7988 (or +1.508.988.7988) or sales@idc.com for information on applying the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights. Copyright 2014 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved.