Salesforce Knocked From The Top … Maybe

Enterprise software is becoming a market of ruthless competition, and the main players are all after one thing: to knock the industry leader Salesforce off its throne.

Microsoft’s angle was to acquire Salesforce outright, but that strategy flopped earlier this year. Oracle, on the other hand, has vowed to surpass Salesforce SaaS sales by the end of the year.

But months before 2015 comes to a close, Salesforce has reportedly been beaten — maybe. The potential winner? Microsoft’s Office 365, according to a new survey released Thursday (Aug. 20) by Okta. But there’s a catch: The survey was only conducted among businesses that use Okta IT and security tools.

Still, the research should not be dismissed. According to reports from InfoWorld, “from November 2013 to June 2015, Microsoft went from being the fourth most popular service to passing Google Apps, Box and, recently, Salesforce.com to become the most used app among the more than 2,500 companies that rely on Okta’s services.”

That suggests that Microsoft’s popularity is picking up speed, though the data found that larger companies are more likely to prefer Microsoft — 74 percent of businesses with more than 4,000 employees use only Office 365, the research showed, while only half of companies with fewer than 250 employees preferred the software service. Reports said companies across the U.S., Canada and Western Europe favored Microsoft the most.

Okta Chief Product Officer Eric Berg said he believes companies are turning to Microsoft for its online Exchange services. Plus, he said, many employees are already well-versed in Microsoft Office tools. Many of Microsoft 365’s features, like company-wide email, are also more beneficial to larger companies with many employees, the executive added.

According to reports, Berg has also held a position as director of product management at Microsoft.

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