Frankly, I feel a bit disappointed by the very first Truffle 100 European ranking. We’re not doing too bad, but it could be a lot better! Okay, we’re #2 behind the US and Asia (India included) hasn’t caught up yet. But software being strategic and more and more integrated to people and employee’s lives, I think it’s time for a revolution: EU countries have everything they need to lead this industry (financial & human capital – especially with Central & Eastern Europe engineers ready to hit the job market, strong demand (most notably in financial, security & public sector software), past examples showing the way to success: SAP, SAGE, Business Objects, Dassault Systems). Now, you software publishers have to make sure the best European code hackers don’t leave for Silicon Valley! So do what it takes to keep them in your teams: open your fucking wallets and call them back quickly when you receive a résumé on your mailbox. For instance, how come LinkedIn (chief software architects are French) and Microsoft (many ex-employees from French R&D institution INRIA) have so many development teams lead by French software developers?

Some figures

Industry revenue growth: +15,1%

Industry profit growth: +35%

Industry profitability: +13%Total revenues: 20,7 €bn

Total aggregated net profits: 2,76 €bn (13.34% of revenues)

Total R&D investments: 2,7 €bn as well (headcount: 37K software developers) vs. 5 €bn for Microsoft only: 1 software company invests more in the future than the entire European continent! R&D investments is definitely not a figure to be proud of.

Investments in software are rather liquid: 83% of European Truffle 100 ranking are publicly traded

Country ranking:

1 – Germany (47,2%, of which 41% are made of SAP only)

2 – the UK (20,6%)

3- France (14,7%)

4 – Norway + Sweden + Finland + Denmark (5,1%)

5 – the Netherlands (3,1%)

Come on guys, where are you Italy (7 players in the Top 100, 2 in the Top 50 only), Spain (1 player ranking 72), Greece, Portugal? It’s time for Southern Europe to sort of wake up: olive oil is certainly nice, but I’m not sure it prepares you best for 21st century technology & economic leadership. Furthermore, I’m impressed and actually thrilled by SAP but I’m not sure having one giant and many followers is necessarily good for Germany. Why? It’s software industry relies too much on one single player: today, SAP does great, but what if SAP suffers a future economic downturn? To all software developers @ SAP: get out of there and start your own software start-up. And if you have no idea about what to develop, contact me.

World software publishers ranking:

1 – Microsoft

2 – Truffle 100 Europe

3 – Oracle

4 – Computer Associates

As a European, I don’t feel especially proud of this: it takes your 100 biggest software publishers to put you on the map!

Anyways, if I had to strike an optimistic stance before I finish: congratulations to SAP for its unbelievable leadership. Summing up the revenues of European software vendors from #2 to #35 allows for starting to compete with Europe’s #1 software company SAP!

See below for the full Truffle 100 Europe ranking:

Related posts:

1. Truffle 100's French software publishers ranking: Mind the Gap!
2. Microsoft IDEAS software startups web 2.0-style
3. SAP vs. Oracle: virtuous M&A?
4. My call: software companies can't take off well in financial centers
5. Notes on Business Objects acquisition by SAP