Microsoft Corp, Computer Associates International Inc, Novell Inc and Oracle Corp occupied the first four places in Software Magazine’s 1994 league table, with Microsoft’s $5,000m revenue accounting for one third of the revenues of the leading 10 vendors. But to put the figures into context, the individual 1994 revenues of the top eight computer system vendors exceeded the combined revenues of the top 10 software houses, indeed IBM Corp’s own $11,300m software business accounted for more than the combined revenue of Microsoft, Computer Associates, Novell and Oracle. The top 10 software firms accounted for $15,100m, or 64%, of the revenue of the combined top 100 software concerns last year, which totalled $24,000m, the magazine reports. Still in top spot after three years there, Microsoft has widened the gap between itself and the competition; number two Computer Associates grew 19% to $2,500m in 1994, from the year before, but Microsoft racked up a 29% increase, growing to $5,000m. Novell gained 9% to reach $1,900m. Oracle – the only other billion dollar software player – grew 40% to $1,700m. SAP AG, at number six, grew 95% to $807.7m. Fastest growers among the US houses were NeXT Computer Inc, 280%, NetManage Inc, 193%, Attachmate Corp, 183%, SAP AG, 179% and Apertus Technologies Inc, 171%. The top 100 software houses employed 207,802 people in 1994, a rise of 13% on 1993. Microsoft had 16,300 staff, up 11% on 1993. The 1994 top 10 were Microsoft, Computer Associates, Novell, Oracle, Lotus Development Corp, $970m, a fall in turnover from $981m, SAP, $807.7m, up from $414m, Sybase Inc, $615.2m, up from $361.7m, Adobe Systems Inc, $597.8m up from $520.2m, SAS Institute Inc, $472.4m up from $420.3m, and Legent Corp, $470.5m up from $416.5m.
