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Analysing the analysis: Gartner’s 2015 CRM market share report

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Top line findings

  • Worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) software totaled $26.3B in 2015, up 12.3% from $23.4B in 2014.
  • SaaS revenue grew 27% year over year, more than double overall CRM market growth in 2015.
  • Asia/Pacific grew the fastest of all regions globally, increasing 9% 2015, closely followed by greater China with 18.4% growth.

These and many other insights into the current state of the global CRM market are from Gartner’s Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2015 (PDF, client access) published earlier this month.  The top five CRM vendors accounted for 45% of the total market in 2015. Salesforce dominated in 2015, with a 21.1% annual growth rate and absolute growth of over $902M in CRM revenue, more than the next ten providers combined.

Gartner found that Salesforce leads in revenue in the sales and customer service and support (CSS) segments of CRM, and is now third in revenue in the marketing segment. Gartner doesn’t address how analytics are fundamentally redefining CRM today, which is an area nearly every C-level and revenue team leader I’ve spoken with this year is prioritising for investment. The following graphic and table compare 2015 worldwide CRM market shares.

CRM Market Share 2015

table 1

Adobe, Microsoft, and Salesforce are growing faster than the market

Adobe grew the fastest between 2014 and 2015, increasing worldwide sales 26.9%. Salesforce continues to grow well above the worldwide CRM market average, increasing sales 21.1%. Microsoft increased sales 20% in the last year.  The worldwide CRM market grew 12.3% between 2014 and 2015.

Spending by vendor 2015

Analytics, machine learning, and artifical intelligence are the future of CRM

Advanced analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize CRM in the next three years. Look to the five market leaders in 2015 to invest heavily in these areas with the goal of building patent portfolios and increasing the amount of intellectual property they own. Cloud-based analytics platforms offer the scale, speed of deployment, agility, and ability to rapidly prototype analytics workflows that support the next generation of CRM workflows. My recent post on SelectHub, Selecting The Best Cloud Analytics Platform: Trends To Watch In 2016, provides insights into how companies with investments in CRM systems are making decisions on cloud platforms today.

Based on insights gained from discussions with senior management teams, I’ve put together an Intelligent Cloud Maturity Model that underscores why scalability of a cloud-based analytics platform is a must-have for any company.

cloud-maturity-model

Sources:  Gartner Says Customer Relationship Management Software Market Grew 12.3 Percent

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Vidyo Joins the Alliance for Open Media | @CloudExpo @Vidyo #Cloud

Vidyo, Inc., has joined the Alliance for Open Media. The Alliance for Open Media is a non-profit organization working to define and develop media technologies that address the need for an open standard for video compression and delivery over the web.
As a member of the Alliance, Vidyo will collaborate with industry leaders in pursuit of an open and royalty-free AOMedia Video codec, AV1. Vidyo’s contributions to the organization will bring to bear its long history of expertise in codec technology and the process of developing standard codecs, with emphasis on interactive real-time communications. The Alliance has made its AV1 codec source code publicly available as an open source project, and the group welcomes contributions from the broader developer community.

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A Trial Balloon Takes Flight into the Cloud | @CloudExpo #Cloud

Humorous metaphor about the cloud aside, this is a not-so-lighthearted blog entry. This is the convergence of progress, loss, and humility.
In the fall of 2015, Salesforce.com (SFDC) announced upcoming initiatives for the Internet of Things. What we now know is that it was envisioned with AWS as its backbone.
By some accounts, the affected infrastructure team at SFDC advocated fiercely for themselves. After all, they had built something in the industry which is still unparalleled, despite many newcomers in the field. Salesforce.com was all about the cloud, even when it was derided, not like today when everyone who’s not rushing to it is considered ancient.

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Does the US Technology Gap Push Med Errors into the Third Leading Cause of Death? | @CloudExpo #Cloud

Recent reports from the GAO indicate the US government is falling behind the technology gap, effecting everything from nuclear weaponry preparedness to an increase in medical errors that have pushed them to become the third leading cause of US deaths. We have IT solutions to solve problems such as healthcare IT interoperability, but for a variety of reasons, ranging from economic to political, nothing is done.

This article examines the root cause of some of these problems and how they can be solved today.

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Bursting Gartner’s ‘Algorithm Economy’ Bubble | @CloudExpo #Cloud #MachineLearning

Gartner is now treating algorithms like they are some kind of innovative addition to the modern digital discussion. Presumably the brilliant minds there have some novel insight into algorithms and, yes, the Algorithm Economy that CIOs should sit up and take notice of.

Not only are algorithms nothing new, but much of what Gartner is saying about them is obvious. The bigger picture here is that software continues to improve, and enterprises are becoming increasingly software-driven, in part because of such advancements. Algorithms are part of this story, but are not a particularly interesting or insightful angle on the broader trend of software-driven business transformation.

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Sponsorship Opportunities at @CloudExpo | #Cloud #DigitalTransformation

19th Cloud Expo, taking place November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world.
Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes. Yesterday’s debate about public vs. private has transformed into the reality of hybrid cloud: a recent survey shows that 74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. Meanwhile, 94% of enterprises are using some form of XaaS – software, platform, and infrastructure as a service.

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Financial Results, IaaS, News & Analysis, Oracle, PaaS, Quarterly Earnings, Saas

Oracle sets sights on IaaS market as it reports 49% cloud growth

Oracle CloudOracle has reported its 2016 Q4 results stating growth over the period declined 1% to $10.6 billion, though its cloud business grew 49% to $859 million, reports Telecoms.com.

2016 has seen Oracle spend almost $2 billion on cloud-specific organizations, as the tech giant continues efforts to transform the Oracle business focus to the burgeoning cloud market. While Oracle could be seen as one of the industry’s elder statesmen, efforts in the M&A market are seemingly paying off as PaaS and SaaS continues to demonstrate healthy growth to compensate for the dwindling legacy business units. The team have also outlined plans to make strides in the IaaS market segment.

Growth in the SaaS and PaaS business has been accelerating in recent years as CEO Safra Catz quoted 20% growth in 2014, 34% in 2015, and now 52% over the course of FY 2016. Q4 gross margin for SaaS and PaaS was 57%, up from 40% during the same period. The progress of the business would appear to be making healthy progress, and Catz does not seem to be content with the current growth levels. The team have ambitions to raise gross margin to 80% in the mid-term, as well as seeing cloud year-on-year revenue growth for Q1 FY 2017 of 75% to 80%.

“For most companies as their business grows, the growth rates go down,” said Catz. “In our case, as the business grows, the growth rates are continuing to increase. Now, as regard to our cloud revenue accounting, we have reviewed it carefully and are completely confident that it is a 100% accurate and if anything slightly conservative.”

Moving forward, CTO Larry Ellison highlighted the team plan on driving rapid expansion of the cloud business. The Oracle team are targeting growth rates which would double that of competitors as its ambition is now to be the first SaaS company to make $10 billion in annual revenue. The team are not only targeting the customer experience markets, but also the Enterprise Resource Management and Human Capital Management segments, where it believes there will be higher growth rates.

“We’re a major player in ERP and HCM,” said Ellison. “We’re almost the only player in supply chain and manufacturing. We’re the number one player in marketing. We’re very competitive. We’re number one – tied for number one in service.”

Secondly, the team will also be aiming to facilitate growth through expanding it IaaS data centre focus, which is currently an ‘also ran’ part of the cloud business. Ellison claims Oracle is in a strong position to grow in this area, having invested heavily second generation data centres, as well the potential for the combination of PaaS and IaaS for the company’s installed base of database customers, helping them move to the cloud.

“And we built, again, the second generation data centre, which we think is highly competitive with anything out there lower cost, better performance, better security, better reliability than any of our competitors, and there’s huge demand for it, and we’re now starting to bring customers into that,” said Ellison. “We think that’s another very important driver to Oracle for overall growth.”

The last few years have seen a considerable transformation in the Oracle business, as it has invested considerably in the development of new technology, as well as acquisitions, seemingly hedging its bets to buy its way into the cloud market. The numbers quoted by Catz and Ellison indicate there has been some traction and the market does seem to be reacting positively to the new Oracle proposition.

In terms of the IaaS market, success in this area will remain to be seen. Although Oracle has the potential to put considerable weight behind any move in this market, it is going to be playing catch up with some noteworthy players, who have cash themselves. Whether Oracle has the ability to catch the likes of AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google, as well as the smaller players in the market, remains to be see, though its success in the SaaS and PaaS markets does show some promise.

containers, Mozilla Firefox, News & Analysis

Mozilla Firefox launches container feature for multiple online personas

FirefoxThe Mozilla Firefox team has announced it will integrate a new containers driven feature to allow users to sign into multiple accounts on the same site simultaneously.

While the concept of using technology to manage multiple accounts and different personas is not a new idea, the practicalities have been out of reach. With the new feature, users will be able to sign into multiple accounts in different contexts for such uses as personal emails, work accounts, banking, and shopping. Twitter is one of the most relevant examples in the immediate future, as it is not uncommon for individuals to have multiple twitter account for work and personal life.

“We all portray different characteristics of ourselves in different situations,” said Tanvi Vyas, one of the security engineers working on the project, on the company blog. “The way I speak with my son is much different than the way I communicate with my coworkers. The things I tell my friends are different than what I tell my parents. I’m much more guarded when withdrawing money from the bank than I am when shopping at the grocery store. I have the ability to use multiple identities in multiple contexts. But when I use the web, I can’t do that very well.

“The Containers feature attempts to solve this problem: empowering Firefox to help segregate my online identities in the same way I can segregate my real life identities.”

The Mozilla Firefox team are one of the first to have cracked the equation, though it does admit there are a number of challenges to come. Questions which the team now need to answer include:

  • How will users know what context they are operating in?
  • What if the user makes a mistake and uses the wrong context; can the user recover?
  • Can the browser assist by automatically assigning websites to Containers so that users don’t have to manage their identities by themselves?
  • What heuristics would the browser use for such assignments?

“We don’t have the answers to all of these questions yet, but hope to start uncovering some of them with user research and feedback,” said Vyas. “The Containers implementation in Nightly Firefox is a basic implementation that allows the user to manage identities with a minimal user interface.”

Containers for Web

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Cloud Industry Forum hails SLALOM as “major step forward” for cloud SLAs

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SLALOM, a European Commission-established initiative which aims to provide greater clarity for businesses dealing with cloud service level agreements (SLAs), has launched its final set of standardised contact terms, with the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) arguing it ‘reduces the uncertainty’ of migrating to the cloud.

The CIF, who is listed as a partner of SLALOM alongside service provider Atos, legal firm Bird and Bird and various educational institutions, says research into the UK IT channel shows that around half of cloud service providers would like additional support from vendors on cloud contracts.

SLALOM’s aim is to push forward the idea of an open, ready to use service level agreements and contract templates which are legally binding. At the beginning of this month, Oliver Barreto Rodriguez of Atos announced the release of the final specs in a SLALOM blog. “The legal team created a set of cloud computing terms and conditions covering all aspects of the relationship between a provider and an adopter of cloud computing services, and setting out the terms and the conditions of the contractual relationship between both parties in relation to the provision of cloud services,” he wrote. “The final document is intended to be practical and useful at European level.”

Alex Hilton, Cloud Industry Forum CEO, argues this is a step in the right direction. “Cloud contracts remain a major stumbling block for both providers of cloud services and end usesr; something that hasn’t been helped by the fact that there has been little consistency in the terminology in the terms used,” said Hilton. “From an end user point of view, that lack of consistency makes it difficult for businesses to know precisely what they are getting into when entering into cloud service agreements and where liabilities and responsibility for cloud service delivery lie.

“SLALOM’s work in this area should streamline that process, lowering the barriers to entry for smaller cloud providers and making it easier for them to compete,” he added.

You can find the finished document here.

AI, Artificial intelligence, Google, Machine learning, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Twitter

Machine learning front and centre of R&D for Microsoft and Google

Dear Future Im Ready, message on paper, smart phone and coffee on tableMicrosoft and Google have announced plans to expand their machine learning capabilities, through acquisition and new research offices respectively, reports Telecoms.com.

Building on the ‘Conversation-as-a-Platform’ proposition put forward by CEO Satya Nadella at Build 2016, the Microsoft team has announced plans to acquire Wand Labs. The purchase will add weight to the ‘Conversation-as-a-Platform’ strategy, as well as supporting innovation ambitions for Bing intelligence.

“Wand Labs’ technology and talent will strengthen our position in the emerging era of conversational intelligence, where we bring together the power of human language with advanced machine intelligence,” said David Ku, Corporate Vice President of the Information Platform Group on the company’s official blog. “It builds on and extends the power of the Bing, Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

More specifically, Wand Labs adds expertise in semantic ontologies, services mapping, third-party developer integration and conversational interfaces, to the Microsoft engineering team. The ambition of the overarching project is to make the customers experience more seamless by harnessing human language in an artificial environment.

Microsoft’s move into the world of artificial intelligence and machine learning has not been a smooth ride to date, though this has not seemed to hinder investment. Back in March, the company’s AI inspired Twitter account Tay went into melt-down mode, though the team pushed forward, updating its Cortana Intelligence Suite and releasing its Skype Bot Platform. Nadella has repeatedly highlighted artificial intelligence and machine learning is the future for the company, stating at Build 2016:

“As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of natural human language with advanced machine intelligence. At Microsoft, we call this Conversation-as-a-Platform, and it builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

Google’s efforts in the machine learning world have also been pushed forward this week, as the team announced dedicated machine learning research based in the Zurich offices, on its blog. The team will focus on three areas specifically, machine intelligence, natural language processing & understanding, as well as machine perception.

Like Microsoft, Google has prioritized artificial intelligence and machine learning, though both companies will be playing catch-up with the likes of IBM and AWS, whose AI propositions have been in the market for some time. Back in April, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the company’s earnings call “overall, I do think in the long run, I think we will evolve in computing from a mobile first to an AI first world,” outlining the ambitions of the team.

Google itself already has a number of machine learning capabilities incorporated in its product portfolio, those these could be considered as relatively rudimentary. Translate, Photo Search and SmartReply for Inbox already contains aspects of machine learning, though the team are targeting more complex and accurate competencies.

Elsewhere, Twitter has announced on their blog advertisers will now be able to utilize emoji keyword targeting for Twitter Ads. This new feature uses emoji activity as a signal of a person’s mood or mind set, allowing advertisers to more effectively communicate marketing messages minimizing the potential for backlash of disgruntled twitter users. Although the blog does not state the use of machine learning competencies, it does leave the opportunity for future innovation in the area.

The cloud news categorized.