Fresh off its annual OpenWorld conference, Oracle earned top rankings in a corporate software usage study released Tuesday by ChangeWave, an investment research firm.
The study also found that 18 per cent of respondents planned to spend more money on software within the next 90 days and 14 per cent planned to spend less.
The study, which was conducted during October, surveyed 1,780 people involved with IT spending in their organizations, according to ChangeWave.
The study found that 36 per cent of respondents use Oracle’s BI software in their companies, up eight points from the last survey, which was conducted in July. However, Microsoft followed closely behind with 35 per cent, according to ChangeWave. Hyperion Solutions, which Oracle acquired this year, also saw gains for its BI offerings, moving up five points to 19 per cent.
For CRM software, Oracle maintained the 26 per cent usage rate pegged by the July study, followed by SAP and Microsoft with 17 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively. Oracle also made modest gains for ERP, rising two points to 32 per cent behind leader SAP, which had 38 per cent usage. Microsoft showed much stronger momentum here, however, shooting up 15 points to 29 per cent, according to ChangeWave.
The organization also asked respondents to reveal from which vendors their companies planned to purchase software in the next three months. Oracle showed a 5 per cent uptick, while SAP remained flat and Microsoft dipped by five points.
“Oracle is showing surprising strength in an otherwise calm macro environment,” said Paul Carton, director of research at ChangeWave.
Carton also said the findings regarding increased software spending are a positive sign for the industry overall. “The fact is we’ve seen this downtick all year, and to see it stabilizing now is interesting,” he said.