The paperless office may no longer be a distant prospect. Despite the recent patchy performance of some vendors in the market, document management software sales are set to swell to $2.4bn in 2001, according to recent research from market analysts, International Data Corp. This growth represents a five-year compound annual growth rate of 36.8% from estimated 1996 revenues of $518m. International expansion, identification of new target industries and enhancements of suppliers’ portfolios, will continue to drive the market, says IDC. These factors will be compounded by the introduction of internet-enabled products as companies increasingly deploy document management software on an enterprise-wide basis, in contrast to the more traditional approach of workgroup deployment in select areas of the organization. The research defines the market as consisting of enterprise document management software, full-text retrieval software, and viewer/publisher software. Enterprise document management software will continue to dominate the market, accounting for 59.4% of the revenue pie in 2001, compared with 53.5% at the end of 1996. However, full text retrieval software is expected to see an aggressive compound annual growth rate of 49.2% over the next two years.
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