SEATTLE, WASH. – October 6, 2010 – Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced it is recognized by IDC, a premier market research firm, as an “Innovative Application Development and Deployment Company to Watch Under $100 Million.” This latest achievement follows a string of accolades honoring Skytap this year, including: SD Times 100, Red Herring 100, AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100, SearchCloudComputing Top 10 Cloud Computing Startups, and 2010 Best of VMworld finalist.
To identify the innovators, IDC solicited entries from vendors with annual revenue less than $100 million that exemplify key trends that are driving change in the application development and deployment markets today. As part of the process, vendors were asked to submit case studies that showcase how the technology provides real-world benefits to customers. IDC identified vendors with the highest composite scores and consistently high rankings by all judges. Skytap made the list based, in part, on its submission of Ellie Mae, a loan origination software and services company.
According to IDC, Innovative Application Development and Deployment Companies Under $100 Million to Watch, Doc #225069, September 2010, “Skytap is well suited for most dynamic workloads including application development, testing, virtual training, ERP migration, and sales demonstration projects.” The report continues, stating, “Ellie Mae adopted Skytap to enable a more efficient and collaborative global development process and reduce IT infrastructure bottlenecks in its development process.”
“IDC’s recognition of Skytap validates our accelerating industry leadership and the emphasis we place on meeting the cloud automation needs of today’s enterprises,” said Scott Roza, CEO of Skytap. “This honor is especially meaningful given that the winners are selected based in part on how customers are benefiting from technology solutions. Companies such as Ellie Mae showcase the business impact customers can achieve through the Skytap Cloud, including cost reduction of 70 percent or more.”
“Innovation is a key facet of the software industry,” said Stephen D. Hendrick, group vice president for Application Development and Deployment Research at IDC. “ISVs with less than $100 million in revenue are responsible for some of the most original and innovative products in the AD&D market.”
*IDC’s “Innovative Companies Under $100M to Watch” reports are a qualitative evaluation of a set of vendors within a specific market – they are not a stack ranking nor do they represent an exhaustive evaluation of all companies in a segment or a comparative ranking of the companies in the report. IDC solicited entries from vendors of less than $100 million that exemplify specific key trends (selected by analysts) that are driving change in a specific software market. Vendors then submitted case studies that exemplified one of the trends used as the basis for the award. These case studies were evaluated individually and independently by related market analysts across several pre-determined criteria. The teams then met to review the scores. The case studies submitted for review had to demonstrate that the technology was available, able to be implemented and provided real-world benefits to the customer.
