COPENHAGEN, Denmark, June 5, 2002 In spite of restrained spending due to the economic downturn, Western European content management and retrieval software revenue still displayed double-digit growth for 2001. IDC expects increase to outpace the growth of European software as a whole for the next five years.

Western European content management and retrieval software revenue reached $637 million in 2001, representing growth of 11%. Fueled by an anomalous high growth of 102% in 2000, the content management market did not feel the effects of the economic slowdown in Europe until the second half of 2001. In early 2002 we see a market that is still far from mature, with no vendor yet emerging as the clear leader.

?Because of the record growth in 2000, content-related technologies have attracted the attention of the largest software vendors, bringing with them expertise in business strategy and marketing as well as thousands of installed customers,? said Nathaniel Martinez, Senior Research Analyst with IDC?s European Software Expertise Center. ?This kind of muscle is hard to fight unless today?s content management vendors make it quite clear to the world that they have more to offer and at a better price.?

The number of content management vendors is decreasing due to the natural market maturity consolidation process. However, this technology will become increasingly important to global organizations struggling to gain control of their content. IDC believes that the features in content management and retrieval will become so central to the enterprise that they will increasingly be embedded in most enterprise applications.

?Better understanding among European organizations of the strategic role of content management systems and the content life cycle will generate strong commitment to deploy content management solutions. However, European organizations have adopted a more pragmatic approach, favoring step-by-step deployments and short implementation time,? Martinez said.

IDC forecasts Western European content management and retrieval software to reach $2.8 billion in revenue by 2006, a CAGR of 35% from 2001 to 2006.