0 Software Industry

Microsoft develops and licenses consumer and enterprise software. It is known for its Windows operating systems and Office productivity suite. The company is organized into three overarching segments: productivity and business processes (legacy Microsoft Office, cloud-based Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, LinkedIn, Dynamics), intelligence cloud (infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service offerings Azure, Windows Server OS, SQL Server), and more personal computing (Windows Client, Xbox, Bing search, display advertising, and Surface laptops, tablets, and desktops). Through acquisitions, Microsoft owns Xamarin, LinkedIn, and GitHub. It reports revenue in product and service and other revenue on its income statement.

Oracle sells a wide range of enterprise IT solutions, including databases, middleware, applications, and hardware. While software licenses, support, and maintenance continue to represent roughly 70% of revenue, the firm is undergoing a mix shift toward cloud-based subscriptions that should necessitate continued heavy investment in the business model transition. Oracle offers software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and infrastructure-as-a-service offerings. Legacy offerings include Oracle Database software and Oracle Fusion Middleware.

SAP is a global software vendor providing solutions for enterprise resource planning, database management, business intelligence, and vertical-specific software. Its flagship software products run on SAP's HANA database technology. In fiscal 2017, the company generated roughly 44% of revenue from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 40% from the Americas, and 16% from Asia.

Salesforce.com provides enterprise cloud computing solutions, including Sales Cloud, the company's main customer relationship management software-as-a-service product. Salesforce.com also offers Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing campaigns, Commerce Cloud as an e-commerce engine, the Salesforce Platform, which allows enterprises to build applications, and other solutions, such as MuleSoft for data integration.

Adobe provides content creation, document management, and digital marketing and advertising software and services to creative professionals and marketers for creating, managing, delivering, measuring, optimizing and engaging with compelling content multiple operating systems, devices and media. The company operates with three segments: digital media content creation, digital experience for marketing solutions, and publishing for legacy products (less than 5% of revenue).

Intuit develops and markets well-known and trusted software products such as QuickBooks for small-business accounting, TurboTax for preparing personal tax returns, and Mint for managing personal finances. The firm is targeting the additional needs of small businesses with payroll and payment processing products in addition to growing its self-employed user base. Intuit was founded in 1983 and is based in Mountain View, California.

VMware, a majority-owned subsidiary of Dell, is an industry leader in virtual machines for data center servers and computer desktops. The software provider operates in the three segments of licenses, maintenance, and professional services. Customers include enterprises utilizing data centers, end-user computing, cloud providers, and software-defined networking. The Palo Alto, California, firm operates and sells on a global scale, with about half its revenue from the United States, through direct sales, distributors, and partnerships.

ServiceNow Inc provides software solutions to structure and automate various business processes via a SaaS delivery model. The company primarily focuses on the IT function for enterprise customers. ServiceNow began with IT service management (ITSM), expanded within the IT function, and more recently directed its workflow automation logic to functional areas beyond IT, notably customer service, HR service delivery, and security operations. ServiceNow also offers an application development platform as a service (PaaS).

Infosys is a global provider of consulting and IT services. The company was founded in 1981, employs more than 200,000 staff, and serves clients in over 40 countries. Infosys provides myriad services, including business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, consulting and systems integration, among many others. The firm serves more than 20 industries ranging from financial services and healthcare to manufacturing and consumer packaged retail.

Activision Blizzard was formed in 2008 by the merger of Activision, one of the largest console video game publishers, and Blizzard, one of largest PC video game publishers. The combined firm remains one of the world's largest video game publishers. Activision's impressive franchise portfolio includes World of Warcraft, which boasts more than $8 billion of lifetime sales, and Call of Duty, which has sold over 175 million copies across 14 titles over 12 years.