Software 2007: Innovation on the upswing

While JavaOne is going on in San Francisco, Software 2007 just got underway at the Santa Clara Convention Center. M.R. Rangaswami, conference host, began the proceedings by documenting the state of innovation in the software industry. Rather than focusing on the next version of a product from Oracle, SAP or Microsoft as evidence of innovation, Rangaswami cited innovation in processes, business models and delivery systems, and SaaS, open source, SOA, Enterprise 2.0 and hybrid models. 

The Sand Hill Group and McKinsey & Company published a recent report, "The State of the Software Industry 2007," which found that out of 475 IT executives surveyed 55 percent said that innovation is on the upswing, even though IT spending not increasing much this year, Rangaswami said. 

In addition, Rangaswami's Sand Hill Group started a stock index, the Sand Hill 30 Index, for the software industry, divided into five sub-segments.

Megavendors
Pure-play software vendors whose every move shakes the industry.
HP
IBM
Microsoft
Oracle
SAP
             
Big Shots
Well-positioned, large vendors in healthy sectors.
Adobe
BEA
CA
EMC
Intuit
Symantec
   
Specialists
Vendors with deep expertise and a strong market position.
Autodesk
Blackbaud
Business Objects
Cognos
Hyperion Solutions
Informatica
Lawson Software
Sybase
Tibco Software
             
New Agers
Next-generation vendors leveraging new technologies and models.
Red Hat
RightNow Technologies
Salesforce.com
Taleo
WebEx Communications
   
New Big 5
The most powerful offshore IT services providers in the world.
Cognizant Technology Solutions
Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Satyam Computer Svcs.
Tata Consultancy Services
Wipro Ltd.