So for many of us, things still seem much harder than they used to be. And yet, overall Cloud spend continues to grow to record levels. In fact, Gartner predicts 2024 spending will grow far faster than 2023, which still grew substantially.
Who’s getting hit hard these days are Optional Apps. The ones folks want, but could cut because they already have some of that functionality in their core suite.
Who’s winning these days: often the core suite itself. Salesforce is back to aggressive hiring.
And ooooold SAP? Founded back on April 1, 1972? Their Cloud business is on fire! (Microsoft too, as we’ll see)
SAP expects to close the year out with their Cloud and SaaS businesses at a $15 Billion run-rate. And even at that scale, Cloud sales are growing a stunning 16% (!). That’s adding $2.400,000,000 in new bookings a year!
Now a lot of this stuff is very, very enterprise, with a big jump in their core enterprise ERP platform. Fairly far away from a lot of apps startups sell. And I have no doubt a material chunk is from price increases and the like.
But all that is a reminder is to remember that if you build something folks really, really need. From a vendor they truly trust. That they just keep buying from again and again and again. And rarely rip it out.
If that’s not you, be honest if your app is truly valuable enough. It probably isn’t. Buck up. And rebuild. And get it there.
And Microsoft is seeing the same thing in its Cloud and Azure division. Growth accelerated last quarter from prior quarter, growing 29% at a $24 Billion (!) run rate!
A related post here:
