Global SI business on the rise

Systems integrators' hourly billing rates are rising for the first time in years, indicating a "healthy" market for such services, according to a new report from IDC Inc., a research firm in Framingham, Mass.

"Pipelines are strong, new deals are plentiful and, for the first time in years, vendors report a slight increase in hourly billing rates, indicating a healthy market for systems integrators," states a news release.

IBM Global Services and Accenture are identified as the worldwide leaders in the report, titled "Worldwide and U.S. Systems Integration Services 2006 Vendor Shares: Top 10 Vendors for 2006."

The U.S. market, serving primarily government, is dominated by Lockheed Martin Corp., Computer Sciences Corp. and Science Applications International Corp., the report said. The global market is more fragmented, with localized providers, as well as major players, including Fujitsu, Hitachi and NEC Corp.

The systems integrators apply various strategies to grow.

"Systems integrators continue to refine their global sourcing strategies, leverage repeatable solutions, develop industry-specific offerings and forge closer relationships with the leading enterprise application software vendors in order to create competitive advantage and differentiation in a consolidating and maturing market," said Cushing Anderson, who wrote the report.