Editor's note: It was a busy 2015 in the enterprise applications world, marked by major trend shifts, product launches and potential mega-mergers. The following is the second installment of a series of Insights posts looking back on the year in enterprise apps. Check out part one right here.
The Big Players Get Their IoT Stories Out
There's been a buzz about the Internet of Things for at least a couple of years now, but 2015 was the year when the industry's top applications vendors stuck their IoT flags firmly in the ground.
Microsoft launched its Azure IoT Suite in March, SAP launched the HANA Cloud Platform for IoT in May, Salesforce introduced the Thunder platform in September, and Oracle rolled out its IoT Cloud in October. IBM, while not as big a player in enterprise apps, made perhaps the biggest IoT splash of all, announcing it would spend $3 billion over the next few years to build out a dedicated IoT business unit.
We've been here before with past industry trends, as large incumbent vendors take a little time to get firmly on the bandwagon. What's important to note is that the IoT technology market remains quite fragmented, with no single company able to offer every piece of the puzzle, such as last-mile communication. This year could see a wave of consolidation along with the expected rash of partnerships, as incumbents look to shore up their positions.
Slack's Meteoric Rise: Anything But
It's probably fair to say no software company enjoyed better press this year than Slack, the red-hot workplace communication startup. Among Silicon Valley's unicorns, it's got one of the sharpest horns and shiniest coats, with a $2.8 billion valuation on expected 2015 revenue of $30 million—nearly a 100x multiple. But Slack also claims a user retention rate of more than 93 percent, which despite its freemium business model would seem to show it's onto something.
Then there's the user growth rate, from less than 20,000 in early 2014 to more than 2 million unique daily users in December. Slack also claims more than 570,000 paying customers.
This year is shaping up to be a pivotal one for Slack, as it prepares to launch an enterprise edition and roll out features meant to make the company's software a platform, and not just a product. (Read Constellation VP and principal analyst Alan Leposfky's coverage here.)
Google Gearing Up for Enterprise Apps Pivot?
The news in November that VMWare founder Diane Greene was joining Google to head up its cloud businesses got some attention, but maybe not as much as it deserved. As part of the deal, Google also bought Greene's startup, Bebop, which is developing an application for developing easy-to-use enterprise apps.
While details of how BeBop's technology will be used are scarce, Greene recently provided some clues and moderate fighting words to the Wall Street Journal:
“We’ve got a programming environment that we think will provide a much cleaner and easier way to build the mobile and Web-based easy-to-use apps that the enterprise really hasn’t seen a great deal of yet,” she said.
One of the most notable details in the WSJ report was the fact that BeBop had developed a hiring application as a way to prove out the platform. There's no word that Google will productize that application, but doing so would be a telling move in enterprise apps beyond the collaboration and productivity tools it has focused on to date.
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