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

PALO ALTO, Calif. – January 12, 2022 – Adobe has been singled out as the Enterprise Software Vendor of the Year in Constellation Research’s annual 2021 Enterprise Awards. The distinguished list of technology hits and misses was announced today highlighting the best accomplishments and biggest mishaps from the past year. This is the third annual release of the Enterprise Awards, decided solely by Constellation Research’s industry analysts and experts.

“Throughout the post-pandemic journey of 2021, several companies stood out for exceptional impact and significant progress in enterprise tech,” said R “Ray” Wang, founder and CEO at Constellation Research. “These companies showed what can be achieved ahead of the ‘Great Refactoring’, where new business models, societal expectations, and exponential technologies will transform the decade to come.” 

Adobe was noticed by Constellation Research’s analysts for their impressive and record-breaking revenues in 2021, fueled by an increase in subscription revenues across an expanding portfolio of creative and experience focused engagement tools and solutions. “Adobe is delivering a platform for experience that extends from doodle to delivery,” noted Liz Miller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. “What 2021 proved is that Adobe is sitting squarely at the center of the booming experience economy and their performance has lived up to that responsibility.”
 
Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake, was tapped as Enterprise Technology CEO of the Year as the data giant has kept the momentum from its 2020 IPO going quite nicely in 2021, racking up triple-digit year-over-year gains in revenue as customers continued to flock to the major public clouds. “Snowflake's one-platform, multi-cloud message resonates with customers wanting choice and service consistency,” said Doug Henschen, VP and Principal Analyst with Constellation Research. “Slootman’s leadership has kept Snowflake focused, ashewing calls for an on-premises offering and concentrating on growing it's single-platform, multi-cloud service that offers consistency and choice.”

Clubhouse, called the “Pokemon GO! for grownups—all the rage for 15 minutes” by Constellation analysts, earned the title of Biggest Technology Flop for 2021. The invite-only audio app kicked off 2021 with a $1 billion dollar funding round infusion in January and a Series C round announced in April, both from Andreessen Horowitz, placing the company’s valuation at $4 billion. By the end of 2021, app downloads and user adoption had slowed to a crawl and new questions about dubious advertising audience claims were getting louder.

The 2021 Enterprise Award categories, winners, and runners up are listed below:

Best Enterprise Software Startup 
Winner: Starburst Data
Runners up: Auditoria, AI, Horizon3.AI, Varada, 

Best Enterprise Software Vendor
Winner: Adobe
Runner up: Snowflake, Oracle, Servicenow

Best Enterprise Services Vendor
Winner: Accenture
Runners up: Wipro

Best Tech Acquisition
Winner: Oracle + Cerner
Runners up: Salesforce/Tableau + Narrative Science, Adobe + Frame.io, Intuit + Mailchimp and Citrix + Wrike 

Worst Tech Acquisition
Winner: Panasonic + Blue Yonder
Runners up: Block (Square) + Tidal, Zoom + Five9, Okta and auth0

Best Partnership
Winner: Kyndryl + Microsoft
Runners up: Google + Ford and Servicenow + 3CLogic 

Best CEO
Winner: Frank Slootman, Snowflake
Runners up: Rowan Trollope, Five9, and Safra Catz, Oracle

Best New Enterprise Category 
Winner: Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)
Runner up: Metaverse Economy

Best New IPO
Winner: Freshworks
Runners up: Hashicorp, Walkme, Sprinklr, Qualtrics, Ui Path

Best New Enterprise Software Marketing of the Year
Winner: Salesforce
Runners up: Zendesk, UKG, theTradeDesk

Best New Enterprise Software Ad Campaign
Winner: Microsoft
Runner up: Adobe

Best Live-Event
Winner: AWS Reinvent
Runners up: Infosys America’s Leadership Summit, and Unit4 Experience 4 You (X4U) 2021

Biggest Tech Flop of the Year
Winner: Clubhouse and Andreesen Horowitz
Runners up: AWS Outage Reporting, Zillow, and Casper

For more about the winners and nominees of Constellation Research’s 2021 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]