The global software market grew at a 3.6 percent clip in 2012, but that growth rate---spurred by analytics and big data---masks a slowdown relative to 2011 and 2010, according to IDC data.

IDC reported that the total enterprise software market in 2012 was $342 million, less than half the 2010 and 2011 growth rates. In other words, enterprise software is at "the beginning of a more conservative growth period."

Growth markets in enterprise software include data access, analysis and delivery, collaboration, CRM, security and system and network management software. All of those markets grew about 6 percent to 7 percent.

By region, Middle East and Africa had the strongest growth in 2012 followed by Asia-Pacific, North America and Latin America. Western Europe enterprise software fell 2.3 percent in 2012.

Among the key points from IDC's scorecard:

Applications accounted for 49 percent of total software revenue and grew 3.3 percent in 2012. The enterprise social software market was a standout with 24.8 percent growth in 2012. Microsoft was the applications leader with 13.7 percent market share followed by SAP, Oracle, IBM and Adobe.

Systems infrastructure software was 27 percent of the market and had 3.3 percent growth in 2012. Storage and system software flat lined in 2012, but virtualization had double-digit growth rates. Microsoft has 28 percent market share followed by IBM, Symantec, EMC and VMware.

Applications development and deployment was 24 percent of software revenue in 2012. Analytics, big data, business intelligence and relational database management were hot markets. Oracle has 21.6 percent of this category's market share, followed by IBM, Microsoft, SAP and SAS.

And the overall standings in enterprise software: