Azure and Marketing - SaaS Brief

The Bar Has Gone Up: The New Era of HyperFunctional SaaS with Jason Lemkin

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Google Cloud , Azure, and GitLab, all tied directly or indirectly to AI, are seeing massive acceleration. But Google Cloud, Azure, and GitLab are all benefiting and on fire. The most important thing is that your second product, is deployed on time before your initial market decays too much. Crowdstrike is up and still grew 35%.

Sales Hiring

Sales Hiring Scale AI SaaS

Clouded Judgement 4.26.24 - Azure Gives Positive Infra Software Preview

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 26, 2024

Subscribe now Azure Report - Cloud Infra Looks Good! For software, all eyes were on Azure - which grew 31% YoY (ahead of expectations closer to 29%). Azure doesn’t disclose exact Azure quarterly revenue (they disclose growth rate in absolute terms and in constant currency), but there are good estimations.

Azure

Azure Cloud Software AI

Bessemer: $1 Trillion in Cloud Market Cap Lost Year-to-Date

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2022

There are many ways to slice-and-dice public market data, but the headline one Bessemer called out is the most visceral I’ve seen: Public SaaS and Cloud companies lost $1 Trillion in market cap so far in 2022. At the same time, the leaders in Cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) are growing a stunning 40%. Strange Days, Indeed.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Marketing

Webinars

How to Achieve High-Accuracy Results When Using LLMs

MORE WEBINARS

5 Interesting Learnings from Salesforce at $40 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Nvidia, Google Cloud, Azure, etc. Salesforce May Be Hiring 1,000+ Reps To Sell AI, But Overall Sales & Marketing Spend is down From 32% of revenue a year ago to 30% today. But how about 2026+? We’ll see. Salesforce Growth: FY26 $40.9B (guidance) FY25 $37.9B Salesforce Operating Cash Flow: FY26 $14.5B (guidance) FY25 $13.1B

Scale

Scale Sales Hiring Azure Cloud

Cloud-Based Solutions: The Sky Is the Limit for Retail Success

Speaker: Ryan Bryers, SVP of Global Engineering

With technology giants like Google, AWS, and Azure leading the charge, the true value of the cloud extends far beyond cost savings. In a rapidly evolving industry, the shift from traditional on-premise systems to cloud-based solutions has become crucial for retail success. Save your seat today!

Cloud

When 1% Market Share Shifts Represent $5b of Market Cap

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 25, 2024

Microsoft’s Azure is winning share directly from Amazon. A one percentage point share shift represents about $750 million of spend or about $5b in market cap. “The number of $100 million-plus Azure deals increased over 80% year-over-year, while the number of $10 million-plus deals more than doubled. 815% Total $4.5b

Azure

Azure AI Search Marketing ChatGPT

5 Interesting Learnings from Microsoft at $200 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2022

But fast forward to today, and Microsoft truly is a Cloud and SaaS company, with Azure and LinkedIn its fastest growing business units! Azure and other cloud services grew a record 40% and the total Microsoft Cloud grew to a $90 Billion run-rate. Azure still growing a stunning 40% year-over-year, 46% including all cloud services.

Azure

Azure Cloud B2B Scaling

5 Interesting Learnings from Google Cloud at $13 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

But are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud just too big for us to learn from? The Cloud Market as Google Cloud defines it has grown at a jaw-dropping rate, from $85B in ’15 to $290B in ’20. Google Cloud continues its march upmarket, competing with Azure. So I think there are some good learnings! million customers.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Scale

Microsoft's Billion Dollar AI Business

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 25, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early trends in the software market to inform startups’ plans for 2023. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) & Microsoft Azure had strong quarters with about 28% annual revenue growth each. The total customer count for Azure’s OpenAI has grown dramatically.

AI Search

AI Search AI Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

How Much Should You Expect Your Startup to Slow in 2022?

Tom Tunguz

JULY 28, 2022

With about 39% market share, AWS reigns supreme as the largest provider. Results from these clouds suggest the market isn’t as soft as the 30% estimate - at least not yet. AWS’s growth rate is the slowest of the three largest public infrastructure clouds. GCP reported 37% growth & Microsoft 40%. Q/Q Growth Rate Change.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS Startup Azure

We End the Year at All-Time Lows for SaaS Growth. A Buying Signal — Or The End of an Era?

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2023

And broader Cloud players had great years too, from MongoDB to Cloudflare to Azure, if not quite as crazy as at the peak of 2021.

Azure

Azure Cloud SaaS Trends

What do Google Search Query Trends Reveal about the Changes in How We Work?

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2020

I’ve also heard anecdotally that some forms of content marketing are doing well in an era when knowledge workers sit before our laptops all day. ZDNet reported demand for Azure is up 775%. I was reading an article in the NY Times about how we’re all using much more internet than we have been.

Trends

Trends Azure Software Review Content Marketing

From $1M to $3B ARR: Databricks CRO Ron Gabrisko on Scaling a Revenue Rocket Ship

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

These early conversations helped shape Databricks product, pricing, and go-to-market strategy. Because thats how their customerswho were used to AWS, Azure, and GCP pricingexpected to buy. For any startup looking to go from $1M to $100M and beyond, Rons playbook is clear: Hire technical sales talent if youre in a technical market.

Scale

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue

Pilot: 57% of Venture Startups Will Need to Raise More In 2024

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2023

Something that’s both not surprising but also pretty impactful: 57% of venture-backed startups will have to go “back to market” in 2024 to raise more capital. Shopify , Datadog, Crowdstrike , Google Cloud-Azure-AWS, Snowflake , etc. What does Pilot’s latest data say? Many have already raised a bridge round.

Startup

Startup Venture Capital Azure AWS

Microsoft as a Mirror - What We Can Expect for SaaS in 2023

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 23, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. We saw moderated consumption growth in Azure and lower-than-expected growth [elsewhere]. Just last week, we made Azure OpenAI Service broadly available, and already over 200 customers – from KPMG to Al Jazeera – are using it.

Azure

Azure Underperforming Technical Team Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence

Why Would Microsoft Buy Wunderlist and Later Just Shut it Down?

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2020

of Microsoft’s market cap. Once Office 365, Azure, etc. Even there, those deals were only so big relative to a $1 Trillion market cap. Because it was just a bet. And maybe even almost an experiment. Buying Wunderlist for $150m sure sounds like a lot to me and you. But the reality is, it’s 0.1% Sometimes, a very big experiment.

Azure

Azure Cloud Acquisition Strategy

The Capex Conquest in the Cloud

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 30, 2024

Cloud Capex in Q1 AWS $14 billion Azure $14 billion Google Cloud $12 billion These are not one-time investments, but part of a broader trend that started to occur after the introduction of GPT 3 in mid-2020 Amazon was the first to invest significantly. “Moving to AWS.

Cloud

Cloud AWS Azure AI

A Look Back at Q1 '24 Public Cloud Software Earnings

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

It’s worth pointing out that Azure is a bit above the long term trendline, while AWS is still below (but accelerating up). It’s worth pointing out that Azure is a bit above the long term trendline, while AWS is still below (but accelerating up). What I’ve shown below is the market-adjusted stock price reaction.

Cloud

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure

Founders Today Just Need to Assume the Next Round Never Comes

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

My summary of Venture Markets in Nov 2022: Series B and later even worse than looks in data: 85%+ of investing here has simply ceased. And while AWS’s growth is down a bit, it’s still at epic levels, Azure isn’t even really down, and Google Cloud is growing faster than ever. But only up to a point.

AWS

AWS Venture Capital Azure Cloud

Signs We've Touched the Bottom

Tom Tunguz

JULY 25, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early trends in the software market to inform startups’ plans for 2023. Both Google & Microsoft announced growth rates in GCP & Azure that held steady from one quarter to the next. Yesterday, Microsoft & Google announced earnings. The desire for AI is broad.

Azure

Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI Cloud

Gartner: Software Spend Will Grow 13.8% in 2024, to Over $1 Trillion For The First Time

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

If you’re selling sales and marketing software, like Zoominfo, it can seem a lot tougher than 12-18 months ago. Growth in public cloud services (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Snowflake, etc.) If you’re selling cloud infrastructure, for the most part, growth may be down a smidge but is still strong, e.g., MongoDB.

Merchant Services

Merchant Services Azure Software AWS

The Health of Cloud Spending in Mid-2022

Tom Tunguz

JULY 26, 2022

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure grew 40% y/y, tying the fastest quarterly growth rate in the past 5 quarters. That suggests the cloud market is quite strong. Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Platform. Amazon Web Services.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Cloud Azure AWS

5 Interesting Learnings from DigitalOcean at $500,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2022

Focusing on smaller developers, in some ways it’s been a bit overshadowed by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. But it’s a great case study on how nailing a niche, and staying focused on a core ICP in a huge market, can pay off. So DigitalOcean is the quiet Cloud platform that keeps on growing.

Azure

Azure AWS SMB Cloud

5 Security Changes Your Company Needs to Make to Land Enterprise Deals from Secureframe

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2021

As a startup, you’re doing a million things at once: building a product, answering customer tickets, developing a sales playbook, trying out different marketing hacks, and keeping the lights on. The reality is all large companies, and more and more mid-market companies, will require a SOC 2 report from their vendors. Deal: closed-lost.

Enterprise

Enterprise Software Review Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS?

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

Another 5%-7% go to core infrastructure costs (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, etc). It’s your top marketing and customer retention investment. Typically support consumes about perhaps 5%-7% of your revenue at scale (excluding customer success) in most SaaS models. It could be more or less, but that’s a rough way to think about it.

Azure

Azure AWS SaaS Customer Success

10 Predictions for Data at the Impact Summit

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

Look no further than the massive companies pushing the public & the private market forward: Snowflake, Databricks, Amazon, Azure, Google Cloud. It’s quite possible that data products have created more market cap than any other subsegment of SaaS in the last five years. 2020 is the decade of data.

Data

Data Azure Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence

Predicting Cloud Growth Rates for 2023

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. A year ago, AWS, GCP, & Azure averaged 44% annual growth. Yesterday, Google & Amazon announced earnings which completes the picture. Growth will continue to slow this year. Today, that figure has dropped to 27%.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Cloud AWS Sales Hiring

The Macroeconomic Signal to Watch for Software & Infrastructure Startups

Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2022

As we navigate this bear market, I’m keeping my eye on broader market data points. A broad software buyer index would be the best metric to understand how buyer preferences are changing across the market. Microsoft Azure. Fortunately, it exists. Service Now. Infrastructure. Google Cloud Platform.

Azure

Azure Software Startup Cloud

How Nimble + Azure Revolutionize Relationship Management for Office 365 Teams

Nimble - Sales

MAY 22, 2019

Nimble has migrated its market-leading SaaS CRM from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Microsoft Azure. The migration enables Nimble to tap into Microsoft’s world-class Azure platform and partner ecosystem to scale. The post How Nimble + Azure Revolutionize Relationship Management for Office 365 Teams appeared first on Nimble Blog.

Azure

Azure Scale AWS Management

Clouded Judgement 2.7.25 - "Group + Triage" AI Systems

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

I do think LLMs will really help turbo charge these markets though, and finally make the solutions actually useful. They each have some of the largest cloud businesses in the world in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud respectively. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue.

Systems Review

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence

Grey Skies in Cloud Earnings

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 27, 2022

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. Microsoft Azure. At a 7x multiple of revenue, that is another $84b of market cap creation, in theory. Meanwhile, Azure has declined in a more steady cadence. Google Cloud Platform. Amazon Web Services.

Cloud

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS

The Critical Question Facing Web3 Infrastructure Startups

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2022

Perhaps this dynamic drives consolidation in the market, paralleling the web2 infrastructure hypermarts of AWS, GCP, and Azure. Developers pay for low-latency storage with the same protocol token as they would pay for compute. Third, software engineers decentralize only a subset of the app.

Payment Solutions

Payment Solutions GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup Payment Features

How Your Sales Team Can Use PLG to Acquire and Expand New Customers Faster with Uday Chakravarth, Former Head of PLG at Atlassian

SaaStr

MAY 30, 2024

With a PLG-heavy background, first working at Microsoft Azure and again with Atlassian, the PLG pioneers, he gives insights into leveraging PLG for the growth of your organization. A freemium version can work well if you want to gain market share quickly. Atlassian, Microsoft Azure, and Zoom are good examples of that.

Scale

Scale AI Search Azure Sales

Lopsided AI Revenues

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 1, 2025

I analyzed Q4 revenue data from publicly traded companies across multiple sectorssoftware companies, consulting firms, and hardware manufacturers to determine which segment dominates the AI market. In second place, Microsoft’s AI business, including Azure, is at a $3.25b Q4 revenue. Maybe this group doubles the revenue.

AI

AI Revenue Azure Consulting

SaaS Multiples Are At a 3+ Year Low. Where It Goes From Here.

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

So the public markets are in tumult. This is just starting to roll through the private markets and is going to make a bumpy rest of the year. Revenue multiples are how much VCs, investors, and ultimately, an IPO and public markets will value each dollar of revenue. And indeed there is today! A Covid Hangover in SaaS stocks.’

SaaS

SaaS Azure Cloud AWS

Thanks to Calendly, Drift, Reprise, Secureframe, and Shift Paradigm for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2022!

SaaStr

JULY 19, 2022

Drift brings Conversational Marketing, Conversational Sales and Conversational Service into a single platform that integrates chat, email and video and powers personalized experiences with artificial intelligence (AI) at all stages of the customer journey. Usually, it takes a paradigm shift to grow. appeared first on SaaStr.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Artificial Intelligence Enterprise readiness Azure

The decade software ate the world

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 31, 2019

If anything, this was the decade they collectively became leaders not just of the technology industry, but of industry itself – Apple overtook ExxonMobil as the world’s most valuable company by market cap in August 2011 (that month again), and then became the first trillion-dollar company by market cap in 2018.

Payment Solutions

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Software SaaS Payments

Thanks to Demandwell, DuploCloud, Prismatic, SafeBase, and WorkOS for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2023!

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2022

We help B2B SaaS marketers turn organic search into a source of repeatable revenue through software and coaching. The platform automates the provisioning of your application to the cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), integrating cloud ops, DevOps, and security/compliance with 24×7 monitoring and support.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness

What Happens When AI Performance Asymptotes?

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 2, 2024

But pretty quickly, the infrastructure layer should commoditize, just as it did in the cloud where three vendors command 65% market share : Amazon Web Services, Azure, & Google Cloud Platform. The rapid growth of AI has fueled a surge of interest in the models themselves.

AI

AI Azure ChatGPT Benchmarks

The 4 Questions Startups Should Ask Themselves about Building with Generative AI

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 6, 2023

In the cloud, AWS, Azure, & GCP have created about as much market cap as all the top 100 B2B & B2C publics built on cloud (Netflix, ServiceNow, AirBnb, etc). Market : how to compete with incumbents? Layer : application, platform, or infrastructure? But there are 100 applications compared to 3 infrastructure vendors.

Generative AI

Generative AI AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup

Clouded Judgement 10.11.24 - Budget Flush

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 11, 2024

The hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are always some of the first companies to report earnings during earnings season (coming up in 2 weeks), and there’s always a read through for consumption names (meaning people believe there’s a correlation). Cloudflare is up 17%. Datadog is up 14%. Mongo is up 16%. Snowflake is up 14%.

Cloud

Cloud Cost optimization & reporting GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Review

Are You Getting More Competitive, Or Less Competitive? Hitting the Plan Might Not Be Enough

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2021

Well, your growth or lack thereof of market share is the #1 sign of potential decay in your product. In a fast-growing market, it’s important to not be quietly left behind just by growing more slowly. You can’t blame it on market changes. Again, they play in the same market. That’s % of marketshare.

Azure

Azure Headcount AWS Education

Clouded Judgement 10.27.23 - Cloud Giants Report Q3 '23

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Subscribe now Cloud Giants Report Q3 ‘23 Not a great signal for software this week from the Cloud Giants (AWS, Azure and Google Cloud)…After Q2 (3 months ago), the tone from the Cloud Giants around optimizations was largely: optimizations have started to ease, and net new workloads have picked up. Staggering scale already.

Cost optimization & reporting

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS

Gartner: SaaS Spending Will Grow Another 40% in Next 2 Years Alone

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2021

After polling CIOs, Gartner found that total SaaS spend will grow from $100B in 2020 to $140B in 2022: A few interesting implications and learnings: The growth in SaaS buying should give you a +20% a year boost on top of your other sales and marketing efforts. That’s a huge tailwind. This is your time, folks. Go make it happen.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS SaaS

The Bar Has Gone Up: The New Era of HyperFunctional SaaS with Jason Lemkin

Clouded Judgement 4.26.24 - Azure Gives Positive Infra Software Preview

Webinars

Trending Sources

Bessemer: $1 Trillion in Cloud Market Cap Lost Year-to-Date

Webinars

5 Interesting Learnings from Salesforce at $40 Billion in ARR

Cloud-Based Solutions: The Sky Is the Limit for Retail Success

When 1% Market Share Shifts Represent $5b of Market Cap

5 Interesting Learnings from Microsoft at $200 Billion in ARR

5 Interesting Learnings from Google Cloud at $13 Billion in ARR

Microsoft's Billion Dollar AI Business

How Much Should You Expect Your Startup to Slow in 2022?

We End the Year at All-Time Lows for SaaS Growth. A Buying Signal — Or The End of an Era?

What do Google Search Query Trends Reveal about the Changes in How We Work?

From $1M to $3B ARR: Databricks CRO Ron Gabrisko on Scaling a Revenue Rocket Ship

Pilot: 57% of Venture Startups Will Need to Raise More In 2024

Microsoft as a Mirror - What We Can Expect for SaaS in 2023

Why Would Microsoft Buy Wunderlist and Later Just Shut it Down?

The Capex Conquest in the Cloud

A Look Back at Q1 '24 Public Cloud Software Earnings

Founders Today Just Need to Assume the Next Round Never Comes

Signs We've Touched the Bottom

Gartner: Software Spend Will Grow 13.8% in 2024, to Over $1 Trillion For The First Time

The Health of Cloud Spending in Mid-2022

5 Interesting Learnings from DigitalOcean at $500,000,000 in ARR

5 Security Changes Your Company Needs to Make to Land Enterprise Deals from Secureframe

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS?

10 Predictions for Data at the Impact Summit

Predicting Cloud Growth Rates for 2023

The Macroeconomic Signal to Watch for Software & Infrastructure Startups

How Nimble + Azure Revolutionize Relationship Management for Office 365 Teams

Clouded Judgement 2.7.25 - "Group + Triage" AI Systems

Grey Skies in Cloud Earnings

The Critical Question Facing Web3 Infrastructure Startups

How Your Sales Team Can Use PLG to Acquire and Expand New Customers Faster with Uday Chakravarth, Former Head of PLG at Atlassian

Lopsided AI Revenues

SaaS Multiples Are At a 3+ Year Low. Where It Goes From Here.

Thanks to Calendly, Drift, Reprise, Secureframe, and Shift Paradigm for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2022!

The decade software ate the world

Thanks to Demandwell, DuploCloud, Prismatic, SafeBase, and WorkOS for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2023!

What Happens When AI Performance Asymptotes?

The 4 Questions Startups Should Ask Themselves about Building with Generative AI

Clouded Judgement 10.11.24 - Budget Flush

Are You Getting More Competitive, Or Less Competitive? Hitting the Plan Might Not Be Enough

Clouded Judgement 10.27.23 - Cloud Giants Report Q3 '23

Gartner: SaaS Spending Will Grow Another 40% in Next 2 Years Alone

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