The rapidly growing market for HMI services will be driven by the end users’ and OEMs’ needs for additional supplier-provided technical expertise to support HMI software and systems, as end users’ and OEMs’ will not fully replace the internal support personnel lost during this past recession. As a result, the HMI software and services market is in a period of recovery, with the services portion expected to grow at a higher rate than the total market, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.
The weakness in the global economy had a major impact on the worldwide HMI software and services market. However, stronger growth is expected to resume during the latter part of the five-year forecast period, as users replace HMI software based on older operating systems with new software packages based on operating systems designed with security in mind. “Security issues presented by older operating systems will drive upgrades from legacy HMI software to the latest HMI platforms. The security issue, combined with the greater use of more powerful, 64-bit microprocessors, will shift users from HMI solutions based on Windows XP or Server 2003 platforms to those based on Windows 7 or Server 2008.” according to Craig Resnick, Research Director, the principal author of ARC’s “Human Machine Interface Software and Services Worldwide Outlook”.
The Asia Pacific and Latin American HMI software and services markets will be the fastest growing regions. North America and EMEA will grow at a considerably slower rate. ARC believes that the slower forecasted growth in North America and EMEA is because a significant amount of HMI software has already been adopted in these mature markets.
