Synergy Research Group, a cloud research company, has announced that Microsoft has overtaken its competitor Salesforce. The two companies were tied at 14% revenue share in Q1 2016. Yet, Microsoft managed to increase its market share to 15% in Q2 2016, whilst Salesforce remained at 14%.

Salesforce has been in the lead of the ‘Software as a Service Provider’ category for many years. However this year Microsoft has secured the top position. Microsoft’s other successes at Q2 2016 ranged from achieving top place in collaboration tools, second in CRM and third in other enterprise SaaS products.

(Results found below)

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella is credited for Microsoft’s victory. He helped to grow Microsoft within the cloud services segment. Microsoft’s win is made even more significant in light of its rivalry with Salesforce. Salesforce rejected Microsoft’s

US$55 billion offer in March last year. Microsoft also made an enemy out of Salesforce when they snatched LinkedIn from them, earlier on in 2016.

Growing SaaS segment

Other companies in the segment include SAP, Adobe, IBM, ADP, Intuit, Cisco and Workday. The segment itself experienced major gains, boosting its revenue to 33%. Chief Analyst and Research Director, John Dinsdale said that the SaaS segment is expected to triple in size over 5 years. He describes a battle emerging within SaaS, between traditional broad-based software vendors and companies more focused on specific application. Dinsdale explains that surprisingly the broad-based vendors are in the lead, aided by their “huge base of on-premise software customers”.

Edited from press release by Ruby Arenson