Software & Cloud Platforms - InSight Analysis - Italy

This InSight Analysis offers a detailed overview of the Italian software market, detailing its key drivers and obstacles, the positioning of the main vendors, and medium-term investment trends.

The Italian software & cloud platforms market closed 2024 with solid momentum, growing just over 10%, mainly driven by public IaaS/PaaS and SaaS. IaaS/PaaS expanded by about 25% as organizations sought more scalable and flexible computing, storage, and networking resources to enable better workload management and support innovation and application development. SaaS grew by roughly 18%, supported by lower infrastructure and licensing costs, easier updates via external providers, and the ongoing modernization of IT architectures. Demand remained strongest for CRM and office automation suites, although ERP and vertical SaaS adoption is rising. Other market segments posted slower growth: infrastructure software & platforms increased by around 2.5%, with security tools, operating systems, and N2SM solutions performing best. Security investments continued to rise due to escalating cyber threats, the emergence of hybrid IT environments, and increasing regulatory pressure. Middleware remained flat as companies favored incremental updates, while application software products were hindered by declines in office, content & collaboration tools as well as stagnation in horizontal business applications. For 2025, PAC expects a broad market slowdown, especially in on-premises products, while security, system, and storage management tools are expected to remain more resilient. However, macroeconomic uncertainty, digital skills shortages, and the reduction of PNRR funding may limit future progress.

In addition to these market trends, PAC’s 2025 survey highlights a strong corporate focus on big data, analytics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, enterprise applications, and security. A majority of companies already have data & analytics strategies or are developing them, with priorities centered on data governance, security, quality, and the evolution of data platforms and architectures. AI strategies are also widespread, especially in sectors that have historically been advanced in data exploitation; most initiatives are led by IT departments and rely on generative AI and machine learning technologies. Cloud adoption is nearly universal, with SaaS and IaaS expansion planned to support modernization and advanced workloads. Security remains a top concern due to geopolitical instability, supply chain vulnerabilities, IoT exposure, and sophisticated AI-based attacks, prompting investments in EDR, IAM, cloud security, and threat intelligence solutions.

Recommended advisory: PAC Leadership Session – Innovation Management