OREANDA-NEWS. October 12, 2010. For the third consecutive year, IBA Group was ranked as one of the world's largest software companies in the Software Magazine's Software 500 rating, now in its 28th year, reported the press-centre of IBA.

IBA Group was ranked 232 with a 14.7% growth rate, compared to #254 in 2009.

The Software 500 is a revenue-based ranking of the world’s largest software and services suppliers targeting medium to large enterprises, their IT professionals, software developers and business managers involved in software and services purchasing.

The ranking is based on total worldwide software and services revenue for 2009. This includes revenues from software licenses, maintenance and support, training and software-related services and consulting. Suppliers are not ranked on their total corporate revenue, since many have other lines of business, such as hardware.

“The 2010 Software 500 results show that revenue growth in the software and services industry was healthy, with total Software 500 revenue of USD 491.7 billion worldwide for 2009, representing virtually flat growth from the previous year,” says John P. Desmond, editor of Software Magazine and Softwaremag.com.

Desmond also highlighted “the continued health of the sectors that speak to the shift of IT services to outside contractors from in-house staff”, i.e. software outsourcing.

According to the ranking, the sectors that showed the best results this year are system integration services, outsourcing services, IT services/consulting/staffing, and outsourced product development and testing.

The ranking revealed further slowdown of the industry’s growth rate. This year, it accounted for 1%, compared to 8.7% in 2009 and 14.7% in 2008.