Cloud is ‘driving the bulk of change’ in the software market as Salesforce.com becomes the first pure play cloud company to make the top 10 companies for global software revenue, according to analyst house Gartner.
“The software market has been changing shape over the past five years, and cloud is driving the bulk of this change as software vendors acquire and provide applications and infrastructure technology to support the cloud and the Internet of Things movement,” said Gartner research VP Joanne Correia.
Salesforce.com is the only new entrant in the top 10 with a 33.3% growth rate in revenue from last year – the company now turns over $3.8bn in software according to Gartner, compared to $2.9bn in 2012. The SaaS bods are the clear winners in terms of growth, with VMware (position #8, 14.1% growth) and SAP (#4, 9.5% growth) the next fastest growers.
Looking higher up the table Microsoft remains the clear leader in global software revenue, yet Oracle moves ahead of IBM into second place in the market.
Microsoft’s revenue for 2013 was $65.7bn in 2013, ahead of Oracle ($29.6bn) and IBM ($29.1bn). SAP ($18.5bn) and Symantec ($6.4bn) complete the top five.
Even though Microsoft is the clear market leader its software revenue business is still growing at a good clip, with 6% growth from $62bn in 2012. Yet for Oracle and IBM – who both posted $28.7bn revenue last year – it’s an interesting indication of how the battle for second place in the market is well and truly joined.
It’s no coincidence that both Oracle and IBM consider themselves cloud companies first and foremost, either. CloudTech recently ran an analysis of Oracle’s “aggressive” cloud movements, as well as talking strategy with IBM last month.
Gartner’s research reiterates trends currently being seen in the marketplace. Companies have to perform a balancing act between keeping the balance sheet looking rosy and investing in cloud-based subscription models – a “multiyear cyclical transition”, as the analysts put it.
The full figures can be found here. What do you make of Salesforce.com crashing the top 10?
