Top 10 fastest growing software companies

Now published by the Top 100 Research Foundation: the Top 10 fastest growing software companies. Google grew its software revenues at an unmatched rate of 455%, even faster than the security experts of Kaspersky Labs. But the software industry has produced many more large and fast growing companies. The following table contains the fastest growing software firms of 2009.

Google still makes the bulk of its revenue through advertising, but its non-advertisement revenues are growing at a spectacular rate, in particular its software revenues. Hence Google leads the fast growth list. As the company has recently announced several major new software products, continued software revenue growth is likely in coming years.

Russian antivirus company Kaspersky more than doubled its revenues to around 360 million USD in 2008. In 2009, Kaspersky exists 12 years as a company, becoming increasingly successful in the last few years. Right now, the company is the fourth antivirus company in the world, with ambitions to climb further on the ranking. At the growth rate Kaspersky achieved, the company could be able to challenge McAfee and Tendmicro in a couple of years.

The software revenue of Nintendo more than doubled, thanks in large part to the success of the Wii. Recent results indicate increased competition from Sony and Microsoft on the game console market, as well as declining demand for the Wii. It is therefore unlikely that Nintendo remains this growth rate.

Omniture, founded in 1996, provides web analytics for online business optimization. After the 100% year-on-year revenue growth in 2008, Omniture entered the Software Top 100 in 2009. The strong results and potential of the company have not remained unnoticed. Adobe acquired Omniture in September 2009.

Activision Blizzard is the gaming giant formed in 2008 after the merger of Activision and the gaming division of Vivendi. The company is a prime example of the booming gaming industry, in which consolidation takes place.

Attachmate is one of the largest privately held software companies in the world. The company was founded in 1981 in Bellevue, Washington. Attachmate focuses on host connectivity and systems and security management software.

Founded in 1994, Emblaze grew from a small Israeli software company into a diversified technology company with holdings in several software companies.

Take2 Interactive is a US based gaming company, well-known for its blockbuster Grand Theft Auto series. The release of GTA4, a very popular game, boosted 2008 revenues so much that it propelled Take2 to the 8th position on the fastest growing software companies list.

Autonomy provides software for extracting information from large amounts of unstructured data like emails, presentations and phone conversations. The British company thanks its growth rate partly to the acquisition of Interwoven.

Salesforce.com is the leading company in offering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for businesses. Salesforce’s software revenues grew 45% and 51% in 2007.