Software certification to experience 25% drop

Gartner believes that investment in the Asia Pacific region will decline

The software certification and training market in Asia Pacific is expected to experience a 25 percent drop in investment from corporations and individuals in 2009 because of the global recession, according to Gartner.

Gartner said that although the market is estimated to grow from $5.59 billion in 2008 to $13.58 billion in 2013, it will not escape the global economic slowdown.

“For some time now, the software certification and training market in Asia Pacific has played a pivotal role in developing quality resources and addressing the long-term skills shortage within the IT industry,” said Asheesh Raina, principal research analyst at Gartner.  “However, training budgets are usually among the first to be cut as part of cost containment efforts with the result that investments have been temporarily suspended and expansion plans deferred.”

Gartner said that the entire certification and training ecosystem in the region is becoming increasingly vibrant due to the amalgamation of ‘mega vendors’ such as IBM, Oracle, SAP and HP; public sector undertakings such as HPCL in India, training enterprises such as Aptech, Genovate and NIIT and various niche and small players.

Software certification and training growth in Asia Pacific’s key markets is also being driven by a number of different local factors.  In Australia, the government has identified the need for skilled resources to remain globally competitive and has made $56 million available for IT training over four years as part of its $837 million program to ease the skills crisis.

“Although the training and certification markets in Asia/Pacific will experience a temporary decline in 2009 due to recession-induced budget cuts, the need for trained IT personnel continues to grow and enterprises and vendors need to work together to collectively deal with this scenario,” said Raina.