The technology is taking over the world. Software along with the latest technology is integrated into almost every aspect of life. Whether it be a corporate firm, a school or even a household, we have gadgets and computers everywhere. These computers and devices can only be operated if they have the software installed in them. Even the small things of our daily use, for example, microwave or air conditioner remotes can operate when they have a specific software integrated into them.
Use of Software in Business:
At first, the businesses used to maintain their records by writing them on papers. The use of computers brought in a revolution in all the fields especially business. It was much easier to maintain the records only on a computer, rather than maintaining ledgers and account books.
Largest Software Companies in the World:
There are companies that hire software engineers and developers that work on the ideas and produce this software. So here a list of some of the largest software companies that produce the most revenue as per a report by Forbes:
| Rank | Company | Country | Sales | Profits | Assets |
| 20 | Microsoft | United States | $103.3 B | $14.2 B | $245.5 B |
| 107 | Oracle | United States | $39.5 B | $3.7 B | $138.2 B |
| 181 | SAP | Germany | $27.4 B | $4.9 B | $51 B |
| 627 | Adobe Systems | United States | $7.7 B | $1.9 B | $15 B |
| 780 | VMware | United States | $7.9 B | $569 M | $20.7 B |
| 856 | Salesforce.com | United States | $10.5 B | $128 M | $21 B |
| 936 | HCL Technologies | India | $7.8 B | $1.4 B | $7.4 B |
| 955 | Fiserv | United States | $5.7 B | $1.4 B | $10.2 B |
| 979 | Intuit | United States | $5.4 B | $950 M | $4.9 B |
| 985 | Amadeus IT Group | Spain | $5.5 B | $1.1 B | $9.5 B |
Microsoft: The largest Software Company
Microsoft has its secure position in the industry not only as a software developing company but also a hardware producing company. The company is the producer of one of the most used operating systems in the world. Windows is the operating system of Microsoft and is available for all computer laptops and other devices. The company also develops productivity applications and business solution programs. Microsoft Office is one of the most used platforms produced by Microsoft. It was founded on 4th April 1975, and it was oriented for working around personal computers.
Microsoft became much popular because of MS-DOS. Later on, a graphical version known as Windows was launched and it got much hype as it had quite an interactive interface. The company moved its headquarters to Redmond in 1986 and the same year the company went public.
Microsoft launched an office suite known as MS Office. It contained several productivity applications and utilities like MS Word and MS Excel etc. Later on, a new version of windows was introduced, and it was called Windows 3.0. Microsoft Windows and Office, both are the most used applications of the company.
About The CEO:
Bill Gates is known as the legend of entrepreneurs. He started his company in 1975 from a small place. The company grew out to be one of the most powerful companies in the world. William Henry Bill Gates is one of the most influential technology innovators. He now is on the list of the richest persons on the planet.
Start of Microsoft:
Bill’s parents wanted him to become a lawyer. He joined Harward but was soon dropped out from the institute. Later on, he started working on the first personal computer software. In 1980, IBM was looking for a developer to make a software for their upcoming personal computer. Bill Gates took the job and delivered the software at a total cost of 50,000 dollars.
IBM later demanded the source code of their software. Bill in return, proposed that their program should be sold with a license and fee to the end user. That lead to the success of the company. During 1979 to 81, the company grew bigger and was on the radar. The staff Microsoft increased from 25 to 128 employees, and the revenue rose from 2.5 to about 16 million dollars.
In 2016, Microsoft purchased a video calling platform ‘Skype’. Later on, Linked In was also acquired by the company.
Oracle, The second Largest Software Company:
Oracle is a software company based in the United States and is known to be the second largest software company in the world. As per the facts and figures updated by Forbes, the company generated about $39.5 billion through its sales. The company has assets of around 138.2 Billion US dollars.
Oracle was started back in 1977 with its headquarters located at Redwood City, California. The company also the control of PeopleSoft, Hyperion, and Siebel Systems back in 2004. The company specializes in database software, and SQL is on top of the list.
History of Oracle:
The Oracle Corporation was founded by Larry Ellison along with Bob Miner and Ed Oates back in 1977. The name of the company was Software Development Laboratories (SDL). The CEO of the company got inspired from a research paper by Edgar Codd on the concept of Relational Database Management System. Ellison also had heard about IBM System R database from another article published in IBM Research Journal.
He wanted to develop software for system R but failed to do so because these systems kept their error codes for DBMS a secret. The name of the company was later changed to Relational Software, Inc. (RSI) in 1979. Later in 1982, it was officially renamed to Oracle System Corporation. Now Bob Miner was serving the company as a senior programmer. The company got its first public offering in 1986. The company earned success in the early days because of its programming language programming. This allowed the programs developed by Oracle to be used on different operating systems.
SAP: 3rd Most Earning Software Company:
Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP) is a German multinational software development organization. The headquarters of the organization is located in Walldorf in Baden-Wurttemberg. It was founded back in 1970 and is considered to be the third largest software developing organization in the world as per generated revenue. The company has thousands of customers in more than 19 countries.
History of the Organization:
The company was founded by five employees of IBM. They left IDM with a goal to produce a real-time business application. They released many versions of their application, for example, SAP R/1, SAP R/2 etc. The R stands for real-time business processing.
Adobe Systems
Adobe System is a multinational software organization based in the United States. The headquarters of the company is located in San Jose, California. It was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. Many software developed by Adobe is quite popular all across the world. Adobe Photoshop, Aftereffects, Illustrator and Acrobat reader are some of the best software produced by it.
Operation Centers and Employees:
Adobe had more than 15,000 employees in 2015. About 40 per cent of these employees work at the headquarters in California. The other operational location of Adobe Systems includes New York City, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Seattle, Utah, San Francisco and Washington. As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Adobe had about 17,000 employees.
VMware
VMware was established in 1998. It has a prominent name in the information technology industry. It produces software and applications for visualization. In the industry, it is one of the leading producers of visualization programs. The products of VMware can be divided into categories, server applications and smartphones applications.
It is one of the largest software companies in the world. As per the statistics of Forbes, the organization generated sales worth $7.9 billion, yielding a profit of about 569 billion dollars.
Salesforce.com:
Salesforce.com is also one of the leading companies of software in the world. It stands on the sixth rank in the list of the largest software brands. The corporation generated a profit of 128 million dollars from sales worth 10.5 billion dollars. It produces cloud-based software. The headquarters are located in San Francisco, California. Most of the revenue generated by the organization comes from its customer relationship management program. Parker Harris and Marc Benioff founded the organization back in 1999.
HCL Technologies
HCL Technologies is an Indian software developing company with its headquarters located in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Shiv Nadar and Arjun Malhotra founded it 42 years ago on 11th August 1976. It has several offices in 43 countries across the globe including the mainstream countries like the US, UK, Germany and many others. The company produces several software related to aerospace, healthcare, banking, media, entertainment, life sciences, insurance, consumer goods and many other niches. The company is listed on the Forbes Global 2000 list.
Statistics of the Organization
As of 30th September 2018, it has a total of 127,875 employees. The main division of HCL Technologies is HCL Enterprise. The three subsidiaries of Enterprise include HCL Technologies, HCL Infosystems and HCL Healthcare. The primary goal of the company was to stick to the hardware, but with the Tech subsidiary, it also focuses on software and other related services.
Fiserv
Fiserv is one of the leading software companies in the world. It is listed in the Forbes Global 2000 list. The organization produces software and application related to finance. It was founded in 1984, and its headquarters are located in Brookfield, Wisconsin. They went public as a data processing company worth 70 million dollars. It has more than 12,000 clients across 80 different countries of the world.
