Okta reveals 5-year trend of best-in-breed apps; also, a kind request I have of you

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Okta, a primary identification system that quite a few organizations use for one indicator-on (SSO), has been aggregating the knowledge of which applications their customers use for the previous five several years. Each year, they publish a report that shares a wealth of fascinating stats, these kinds of as the relative attractiveness of diverse applications. This is a further example of floor-truth empirical information about tech stacks that I locate very credible.
In the 2022 version of Okta’s report, just introduced, the most interesting chart is the one particular I’ve excerpted previously mentioned. It reveals that businesses who use Microsoft 365 applications and platforms — which collectively span every thing from docs and spreadsheets to improvement platforms and videoconferencing — have also been increasing their adoption of “overlapping” applications and platforms from other businesses.
Certainly, they are Microsoft 365 shoppers. But some desire AWS over Azure. Or Salesforce around Dynamics. Or Slack and Zoom in excess of Groups. Or Smartsheet in excess of Excel. Or Tableau around PowerBI.
For each and every of those people apps, you can abide by their light-weight-to-dim-coloured dots in the chart steadily sliding still left to proper, 12 months-in excess of-year. The adoption of finest-of-breed apps, at least in just the context of Microsoft 365, has unmistakably been increasing.
With the exception of Box, which has been likely in the specific reverse way (sorry, Box). I individually like Box, and their CEO’s Twitter account is pure gold. But out of all the apps in the record, it seems to me their core solution may be the most straightforward for Microsoft to commoditize from inside the Office environment 365 ecosystem.
Is this finest-of-breed pattern consultant of stacks all round, primarily for martech?
It absolutely aligns with the continued progress in stacks we have found in other combination facts from the SaaS Management Platforms. And several of the apps overlapping with Microsoft 365 are part of the martech entire world.
But I can hear the objection to the methodology. “Hey, just simply because I use Microsoft Term doesn’t imply that I want to use Microsoft Dynamics as my CRM. Those are apples and oranges!”
Fair enough. But it is an exciting considered experiment. If the world’s second-most significant, $2.3 trillion program business — and the world’s initially-largest, $2.8 trillion Apple, who does not even contact most of these app classes — cannot fulfill you with anything from their portfolio, then who could? And if you reply that it all relies upon on the purely natural boundaries of groups, for the reason that evidently files are distinct than CRM records, I would humbly observe that delineating those so-referred to as normal boundaries will get more difficult as groups get nearer to just about every other.
1 other chart from that Okta report that I’d like to highlight:

This is the progress of adoption of big cloud platforms, this sort of as AWS and Azure, becoming linked as a result of Okta. Two points value noting:
Initial — wowzers — the length among AWS and anyone else is stunning.
But 2nd, and additional related to my narrative, the advancement in adoption of all of these cloud platforms — steep up-and-to-the-proper climbs — is advancement in their use by builders to generate additional software program. They are the engine powering The Great App Explosion. And much more and additional of that app explosion is tailor made-developed.
If you observe individuals trend traces, they guide to a planet of more computer software range, not less.
Now for the kind ask for I have of you…
Our Annual Martech Career Survey

If you take pleasure in my posts and would like to assist our martech neighborhood, I’d inquire this favor of you: remember to get a pair of minutes to total this 2022 Martech Income and Career Survey that I’m conducting all over again with my buddies at Martech.org. The a lot more martech pros like your self who participate, the bigger the n of the our research, and the more considerable the outcomes will be.
We’ll then publish the aggregate success for absolutely everyone to browse. I’m super curious to see the final results. Are not you?
Thank you for your assistance.