5 ms·
Ask HN: What's a not so famous software company that makes a lot of money
Hello,
We all have heard of big name software companies but what are some unusual software companies that makes millions every year which we might not have heard of?
- sashank_1509 3y agoServiceNow comes to mind for one, I would have never guessed it’s revenue is 7 billion and I literally never heard of it
- shinryuu 3y agoI have developed stuff on top of their platform. Worst experience I ever had.
- adamhp 3y agoYikes. Scary to see this in the wild as one of my customers is moving to it and we'll likely be layering custom solutions on top of it...
- shinryuu 3y agoSorry to hear. Don't bill on a project basis, bill on a hourly basis or daily basis for custom solutions, and it might make sense to bring on outside expertise because there are quite a few footguns. Either way there will be a learning experience.
- mr_o47 3y agoPeople make a lot of money doing that
- shinryuu 3y agoHonestly in this case I'd rather make less, and not work with servicenow :/
- bicx 3y agoServiceNow has quite a miserable user experience, but I guess their enterprise sales game is strong. They’re selling to C-levels, not us peons who actually use it.
- Spooky23 3y agoI’d disagree. All ticketing systems suck. The pretty ones are only pretty when they are simple one function affairs. ServiceNow sucks less than their competitors and dominates the market as a result. If you think it’s bad, Remedy or whatever the HP product was called was exponentially worse.
- bicx 3y agoI don't even want to think about an HP ticketing system.
- mattnewport 3y agoMaybe this doesn't fit your definition of "software company" but Renaissance Technologies certainly makes a lot of money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies
- mtmail 3y agoIn the GIS space there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esri It's like the Microsoft Office of creating and analysing spatial data. 1 billion USD revenue, 3000 employees and private owned, making the owner a billionaire (net worth estimated 8 billion USD).
- sheunl 3y agoYep. They have a niche there. The only worthy alternative in their space is QGIS.
- perfect-blue 3y agoWe use QGIS in our research environments because it’s free, open source, and is cross-platform. It’s the only fully featured GIS suite that Mac/Linux users can use that I’m aware of. Always looking for suggestions though.
- lnwlebjel 3y agoI used to know the founder of JDA Software (which now operates under a new name). They do logistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Yonder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Yonder The link suggests 1.1 Billion in revenue in 2021
- mr_o47 3y agoWho would have thought about this It’s pretty impressive
- defrost 3y agoIn the geospatial data import and integration game since ~ 1990 sits the BC, Canada company Safe.com and their swiss army knife product FME https://www.safe.com/company/ https://www.safe.com/company/ Today we provide a range of data solutions for over 25,000 customers and over 200,000 users across 121 countries. Which is a whole lot of solutions for anyone who’s counting. I'm not spruiking here but it's a handy bit of kit for anyone pulling (say) land lease boundaries and tenement data from hundreds of different local government | state formats to integrate into a single XXX database (PostGres, MS, etc). They're currently expanding from ~$70 M / year to a goal of $250 M / year .. but this is likely more through market expansion than software development. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230413005193/en/Safe-Software-Strives-to-More-Than-Triple-Revenue-to-250M-in-Five-Years-Through-Product-and-Market-Expansion https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230413005193/en/Saf... --- Fugro is not a famous software company, arguably not even a software company .. but they have a lot of in house geospatial, geophysical, software ranging from firmware to desktop applications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugro I have very mixed feelings about Fugro and haven't worked for them (having turned down a very good offer) but they did absorb a rather large chunk of my own personal codebase.
- mattbgates 3y agoProbably have heard of it if you ever walked into a gas station, but Arizona Iced Tea has been kept a small company and yet they are profitable. Although some retailers charge more for it, the company has always had $0.99 on the can and it has never changed, even through inflation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Beverage_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Beverage_Company
- KomoD 3y agoThat's not a software company though
- mattbgates 3y agoYou are right, I thought he wrote "not so famous company".
- RGBCube 3y agoWell it's a soft drink company, I'd say it's pretty close to a soft ware company.
- berkeshire 3y agoWayfair, Qurate, SAIC, Insight Enterprises, DXC ... Fortune 500 companies that have billions in annual revenues.
- desi_ninja 3y agoPick any undergraduate in USA and ask them if they know about Juniper networks or NetApp.
- mguerville 3y agoI work for CCC IS, we make software to help collision repair facilities and auto insurers estimate the damage to your vehicle and the needed repair… only in the US, only private vehicle auto insurance… $7B market cap
- shortrounddev2 3y agoMillions isn't really a high bar for revenue in software
- hahnchen 3y agoLots of people havent heard about Quant in my experience. Citadel, Jane Street, etc
- eb0la 3y agoSolera - they had a product to find automotive spare parts. Their biggest customers were insurance companies. Hotelbeds - Like Sabre, or Amadeus but for hotel rooms. Based in Majorca (they have an office near the airport). Nice people (and cool tech, btw)