Top Software Companies

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Software companies are changing the world constantly. Bill Gates and Paul Allen changed it permanently with their initial MS DOS programme. They brought computing into the home. They are everywhere today in the form of laptops, desktops, hand held tablets and mobile phones that are virtually communicating computers. The little chip has invaded our bodies our cars and our homes. Someone has to program these little silicon wonders and this is where the ten top software companies of the world step in. Whether we like it or not our lives are being governed by the software they churn out and the hardware they help produce and promote in the form of games and mobiles.

1. Microsoft Corporation
This is the company which has influenced us the most even up to the current year of 2011. The Windows software is in all the laptops and personal computers being used by the citizens of the world. It has invaded the lives of young and old with its gaming devices, prominent among them being the Xbox and the Xbox360. The corporation is also in the television news dissemination industry with its collaboration with NBC thus forming MSNBC. With a total revenue nearing 65 billion dollars and a net profit of more than 16 billion dollars it certainly is the biggest software company because most of its revenue is still from software.

2. IBM
IBM had a name in computers even before Bill Gates came on the scene with Microsoft. The company currently sells both hardware and software all over the world and had a 2010 total revenue of nearly a 100 billion dollars but its net profit is lower than Microsoft at 14.83 billion dollars. Originally a business machine selling company over the years it has merged and remerged to become a mammoth corporation which is one of the biggest in the world. IBM was the creator of FORTRAN a computer language very much in use before the advent of MSDOS. IBM was the only big computer company which could deliver computing power for the NASA program. IBM is very progressive as a researcher and as an employer.

3. Google Inc.
This is the prominent search engine on the internet receiving a billion requests a day on its site. The profits are generated by advertising on Google through AdWords. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin during their college days at Stanford. The motto of the company is ‘Don’t Be Evil.’ The headquarters of the company are in Mountain View California. Google has a million servers operating all over the world keeping control of all the data requested by the people of the world. Google is a derivative of Googol which is the word for one followed by a hundred zeroes. It had a net profit of 8.5 billion dollars in 2010.

4. Oracle Corporation
This company is based in Redwood Shores, California, USA. It is a software and hardware development company concentrating on providing special database management systems all over the world. Its famous software programs are Oracle Database and Oracle Applications. It had a net profit of more than six billion dollars in 2010.

5. SAP AG
SAP AG is a German consulting firm with a net profit of 1.81 euros in 2010. This company specialises in providing software consulting to businesses of all sizes all over the world. It has its base in Waldorf, Germany. Its best known product is SAP ERP which stands for SAP Enterprise Resource Planning. It was founded as System Analysis and Programme Development in 1972. Its main rival is Oracle Corporation.

6. Accenture plc
Accenture plc is based in Ireland for tax purposed but its administration headquarters are in New York. It had a net profit of 1.78 Billion Dollars in 2010. It is the largest consulting firm in the world and thus with its many software creations for the operation of its many services it is considered one of the software giants. It is big in technology consulting for people wishing to develop specific software for their own operations anywhere in the world. It had genesis as Andersen Consulting.

7. Hewlett Packard
This company is based in Palo Alto, California, USA. It made a net profit of 8.76 billion dollars in 2010 but most of it came from its hardware sales. The company was founded in 1939 by two Stanford graduates named Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The company is also known as one of the founders of Silicon Valley. HP Software Division is the section of the company dedicated to software sales, research and development. It has a successful package in HP IT Management Software.

8. CA Technologies
CA Technologies is based in Islandia, New York. It was founded in 1976 by Charles Wang and Russ Artzt. It is one of the biggest software development corporations that survive independently in the world of IT technologies. It made a profit of 771 million dollars in 2010. It is ranked as one of the greenest companies in the world. It is one of the companies which has adopted cloud strategy. The company has grown by acquiring software companies and merging them into CA Technologies.

9. Infosys Technologies Ltd
This company is based in India and generated a profit of 1.31 billion dollars in 2010. It was founded in 1981 by NR Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani. It is a software company with a global presence and is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

10. Yahoo Inc.
This company is based in Sunnyvale California. It was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. It had a profit of 1.23 billion dollars in 2010. The main business of the company is as a web portal and search engine and its Yahoo Mail service. It was founded in 1995. An unsuccessful bid was made to acquire Yahoo by Microsoft Corporation. The main revenue comes from advertising on its web site. It has a forty per cent share in a controversial company Alibaba which markets products made from shark farming. Yahoo has a big chunk of the advertising revenue from internet services