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bsoco, the software comparison site, has published its 2014 barometer

A unique document which gives a clear analysis of trends in the software market

bsoco, the leader in community benchmarks for professional software, has published its 15th barometer. This document presents purchasing trends for B2B software in the final trimester of 2014 as well as a complete overview of the past year. Each trimester, this reference barometer presents performance indicators in software segments such as CRM, ERP, e-learning, HRIS, CMS etc.

Business was down for software developers in the most recent trimester as there was a decline of 7.76% compared to the previous period. Nonetheless, 2014 saw a cumulative increase of 26.4%, which brings the performance index up to its level of 2011. The indicators are rather optimistic according to Pavel Novak, chief analyst at bsoco, “We are seeing some shifts in interest. For example, a product like CRM which has outperformed other categories in recent months has slowed somewhat, while gains were made by products for management, HR or e-learning. CRM is not a cyclical product and we believe that the slight slowdown is paradoxically a sign of a more global recovery.”

Nearly all software categories are up compared to the same trimester last year. The category which has shown the greatest growth is recruiting software. As emphasized by Pavel Novak, the traditional cycle of recovery is generally underway for business development software (CRM, e-marketing, etc.), followed by HR software, and finally tools to optimize business processes.

A similar observation was made by Mylène Chaussat, consultant at HumanSourcing (recruitment software), “The market slows at the end of each year. Budgets have generally been spent and we see fewer orders. However, we have numerous contacts and I would expect some new organizations in the future and corresponding purchases. In the first nine months of 2014, we saw an increase in sales of 20% despite a rather gloomy job market.”

Open source (free) software and SaaS continue to be more popular than purchased software. Magali Michel, Director of Yooz, offers a paperless billing solution which is 100% in the Cloud, reflecting the strong growth of SaaS for his company, a trend also seen among his peers. “The market breakthrough of these products can be explained by the simplicity of their implementation. Used every day by thousands of companies, these new kinds of solutions create value by modernizing, strengthening and securing processes.”

The overall price of software increased slightly (+1.69%). “Again, that’s a sign of recovering activity in the software world after 5 trimesters of decline,” says Pavel Novak.

Countries currently leading in software investment according to the barometer are Spain, Canada and Eastern Europe. The United States and United Kingdom, usually at the forefront, are slightly behind.  

Finally, the bsoco barometer has unveiled its regular TOP 50 list, which ranks the top 50 software programs based on user satisfaction. Notable movers include Sigma’s HRIS software, which jumped 30 places up to 17th place. Moreover, for the first time in the field of e-learning, 3 authoring tools cracked the top 50, two American - Xyleme, IBM Kenexa, and one European - e-doceo.

The full study (the bsoco barometer) is available for download on the homepage of our site: bsoco, software comparison.

About bsoco.com
bsoco is a company which specializes in benchmarking professional software. Based on big data principles, it provides software developers and companies looking for B2B software with analyses of statistics obtained from its large community of users. The concept is unique in that it turns the observed behavior of software users into a relevant factual index. Software is evaluated according to 4 criteria (performance, usability, reliability and services) offering readers a tool to compare the performance of products offered from market leaders.

To determine purchasing trends, bsoco analyzes the browsing behavior of its thousands of users worldwide and identifies the most frequent searches. It also considers the sales of its benchmark sheets, which is a reliable indicator of the short-term purchasing plans of users. Recognized by professional software developers, the bsoco barometer gives useful and relevant benchmarks for both software vendors and buyers.

With a strong presence in the United States, England, France, Spain and South America, the bsoco community allows the site to provide unique comparative studies of all kinds of software including ERP, CRM, CMS, e-mailing, HRIS, LMS, rapid learning, authoring tools, talent management and accounting.

http://www.bsoco.com

Press contact: michaela.zabova @ bsoco.com

 

Publi-reportage - //20