Annual List of Hits and Misses Recognize the Innovators and Disruptors Across Enterprise Technology 

PALO ALTO, Calif. – December 13, 2023 – Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, was named as Enterprise Technology CEO of the Year in Constellation Research’s annual 2023 Enterprise Awards. Narayen was singled out for his strength in leadership, specifically for leaning into AI and Firefly when critics said AI would kill creative jobs. 

Microsoft was named the 2023 Enterprise Software Vendor of the Year, recognized for their existing partnership with OpenAI and investment in generative AI while also actively changing the ground rules with copilots and the cloud. The distinguished list of technology hits and misses was announced today highlighting the biggest accomplishments and downfalls in 2023. This is the fifth annual release of the Enterprise Awards, decided solely by Constellation Research’s industry analysts and experts.

“The enterprise tech market looked bleak going into 2023, especially the dirth of IPOs, but it was AI, specifically Generative AI that saved the industry,” said R “Ray” Wang, founder and CEO at Constellation Research. “This year’s winners navigated this massive disruption to not only meet the imaginations of an industry, but also craft pragmatic roadmaps for the transformation ahead in business and technology.”

AWS re:Invent won Best Live Event of 2023 recognized for its take over as the biggest event in enterprise tech with 60,000+ attendees and broad cross section of vendors exhibiting. While the Best Enterprise Partnership went to Nvida as their multiple partnerships pushed them ahead in the AI race, leveraging them as a winner regardless of who wins the AI war. AWS, Microsoft, Google, Hugging Face, Databricks and Snowflake top the list of most prominent partners, but the list of organizations vying to scale opportunities through Nvida partnership is lengthy resulting in Constellation’s analysts to award this year’s honor to “Anyone and Everyone All At Once.” 

“Jensen and his well-traveled leather jacket were on stage at every AI conference--often live and during the same week,” noted Andy Thurai, VP and principal analyst with Constellation Research. “If you want to win in the arms AI race, you must partner with Nvidia.”

While top honors to the best in enterprise technology are typically hard to narrow and award, the flops of 2023 were quick to identify and call out. The Biggest Technology Flop for 2023 goes to “The Slow and Painful Death of Legacy Social Media”, an “honor” proven out by the crash and demise of once-hot solutions. “From the failed promise of Instagram Threads replacing the disaster known as X to the near constant appearance of Social Network CEOs in government hearings and lawsuit court dates, 2023 lay bare all the bumps, bruises and warts that now cover once dominant social media platforms,” said Liz Miller, VP and principal analyst at Constellation Research.

While social media platforms take a hit, Quantum as a Service (QaaS) takes the lead as the hottest new Enterprise Technology Category as Constellation’s lead analyst on quantum, Holger Mueller, notes that for the first time, quantum computing is showing real commercial value to enterprises and handling workloads. “Quantum technology will be the first technology that enterprises will not deploy on premises but consume through the cloud,” said Mueller.

The 2023 Enterprise Award categories, winners, and runners-up are listed below:

Best Enterprise Software Vendor
Winner: Microsoft
Runners up: Databricks, Adobe

Best CEO
Winner: Shantanu Narayen, Adobe
Runners up: Marc Benioff, Salesforce; Jensen Huang, Nvidia; Melanie Perkins, Canva

Best Enterprise Services Vendor
Winner: Persistent 
Runners up: Cognizant, Accenture

Best Enterprise Software Startup
Winner: Hugging Face 
Runners up: OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere

Best Partnership
Winner: NVIDIA with Anyone and Everyone All At Once 
Runners up: Oracle + Microsoft, Microsoft + OpenAI

Best Tech Acquisition
Winner: Atlassian + Loom 
Runners up: Cisco + Splunk, Salesforce + Airkit 

Worst Tech Acquisition
Winner: Blackstone Acquires Cvent 
Runners up: Cisco/Splunk, OpenText/Microfocus

Best New IPO
Winner: Arm

Best New Enterprise Category:
Winner: Quantum as a Service 
Runners up: Model Marketplaces, NexGen CoPilots

Best New Enterprise Software Marketing of the Year
Winner: Google Cloud 
Runners up: Atlassian, Adobe 

Best New Enterprise Software Ad Campaign
Winner: Workday “Rockstar” 
Runners up: IBM WatsonX, Smartsheet Peak Human

Best Live-Event
Winner: AWS reInvent 
Runners up: Databricks Data + AI, Adobe MAX, GoogleCloud NEXT

Biggest Tech Flop of the Year
Winner: The Slow and Painful Death of Legacy Social Media
Runners up: OpenAI Board Soap Opera

For more about the winners and nominees of Constellation Research’s 2023 Enterprise Awards, click here.

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ABOUT CONSTELLATION RESEARCH

Constellation Research is a technology research and advisory firm based in Silicon Valley. We deliver strategic guidance to companies seeking to transform their businesses through the early adoption of disruptive technology. Our analysts draw on their experiences as practitioners to deliver pragmatic advice to CXOs leading digital transformation within their organizations. Clients include board of directors, C-suite executives, line-of-business leaders, and IT visionaries who are not afraid to challenge the status quo. Our mission is to conduct research on emerging technologies, identify and validate trends, and empower our clients to succeed in the digital economy. Constellation Research also hosts DisrupTV, a show hosted by our founder R “Ray” Wang, which features disruptive leaders and reaches 40k+ viewers each week.

 

Media Contact:
Elle Froze and Hannah Hock
Constellation Research
[email protected]