10 Innovative Software Companies to Watch
As business continues to re-orient itself around the changing times, a number of companies have been diligent about responding with social, cloud and mobile offerings. Accordingly, analyst firm IDC (news, site) recently identified ten under US$ 100 million to keep an eye on: 

The Keys to Success

In addition to being under $100M, the companies were identified by their demonstration of one or more of the following three key trends: 

  • Social Business Solutions: Enterprise collaboration was a huge topic for us last month, and it continues to be a huge topic in the business space. E2.0-level social solutions support communities, blogs, microblogs, etc. 
  • Enterprise Application Vendors Go-to-Market Strategies: This area includes unique channel partner models, cloudsourcing models, and SaaS offerings.
  • Mobile Enterprise Applications: Mobile enterprise software applications and platforms provide access to enterprise systems and processes for the increasing number of on-the-go employees.

Ten Game-Changers

"Business has changed," explained Michael Fauscette, group vice president, Software Business Solutions. "The social web, cloud delivery models, and an increased use of mobile in the enterprise are all impacting businesses and the enterprise application software needed to facilitate business change..."  

And so, without further ado, here are ten companies rolling right along with that impact (in alphabetical order):

  • Antenna Software
  • Appirio
  • CloudShare
  • CyberShift
  • INgage Networks
  • InsideView
  • Lithium Technologies
  • Mobisoft Corporation
  • Private Social Networks
  • Zuora

The criteria that lead to the identification of these companies were based on another IDC report titled, Worldwide Software Business Solutions 2010 Top 10 Predictions: The "New Normal" for Enterprise Software (check that out here).