软件行业的重大复苏之争

Raimo's Roundup: The BigComeback Debate In Software The last few days along with instances a few weeks ago, wehad moments in which it felt like software could be back.Thereisclearlypotentialherefromavaluationandpositioning perspective, but the lack of catalysts andmomentuminsemisremainhurdles. POSITIVEU.S.Software Raimo Lenschow, CFA+12125262712raimo.lenschow@barclays.comBCI, USSaket Kalia, CFA +12125268465saket.kalia@barclays.comBCI, US We published the 18th volume ofour ObservabilityIndustry Review, whichfocused on Kubernetes (K8) monitoring and linked Datadog's strong performance to rapid K8 adoption overtime (see our note here).Additionally,we published the 30th version of Raimo's Trend Spotter,where we took a deeperlook into various web traffic trends across oursector (see the notehere). Eamon Coughlin+12125266142eamon.coughlin@barclays.comBCI, US Microsoft reported better-than-expected 4Q26 earnings, ledby Azuregrowthacceleratingto43% YoY in cc (vs.39% last quarter).Management maintained its capital allocation discipline,reiterating its positive FCFtarget by the end of FY27 and an unchanged capex outlook, drivingshares higher (see our recap here). Circle (not covered)announced its acquisition of IBM'sfull blockchain patent portfoliofor anundisclosed amount.Patents include worldwide protections in banking,insurance,supply chainverification,secure cloudoperations,and more.Thedeal made Circlethe leaderinblockchainpatent technology in the US. Snowflakeintroduced CortexAl Gatewayalongwith several otherAl security innovations.Thelaunchhelps establish thefoundationfortrusted agent interoperability,enabling organizationsto securely scale theiragentic enterprises What's Next? Today,July31st,at 10amET,software analysts Raimo Lenschowand SaketKalia arehostingtheirbiweekly softwareinvestorcall (link). Next Tuesday,August 4th, Digitalocean will report earnings before the open.Paylocity andTeradata will report earnings after the close. NextWednesday,August5th,Dynatracewill reportearnings beforetheopen.ZoomlnfoKlaviyo,Paycom,and Hubspotwill reportearnings aftertheclose.Raimo Lenschowwillbehosting an in-person roadshow inNYC with Pegasystems'CFO&COo, Ken Stillwell. Barclays Capital Inc.and/or one of its affiliates does and seeks to do business with companiescovered in its research reports.As a result, investors should be aware that the firmmay have aconflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider thisreportasonlyasinglefactorinmakingtheirinvestmentdecision Please seeanalyst certifications and importantdisclosuresbeginning onpage10.Completed: 31-Jul-26, 01:04 GMTReleased: 31-Jul-26, 04:10 GMTRestricted-External beforethe open.Five9,SproutSocial,JFrog,andAtlassianwill reportearningsafterthe closeNext Friday, August 7th, Raimo Lenschow will be hosting a post-earnings discussion with DatadogCEOOlivierPomelandCFODavidObstler (registerhere). Earlierthis week, we had a few days in which we saw significant positive moves in the software space.This triggered debate and renewed hope among investors that software could be comingback. From a valuation perspective, there is certainly potential for a meaningful move higher, asthe graph below shows the depressed valuation levels in the space relative to historicalaverages. Seeing large strategic platform names like ServiceNowtrade at 17x EV/FCF (CY27) iscertainly generating positive interest among the investment community As we argued a few weeks ago,there is also an interesting setup when looking at shortinterestin the space, with short-position levels meaningfully above historical levels (Raimo's Roundup:HighShort Interest Mirrors Sentiment ButCreatesRiskofaSqueeze,7/24/2026). However, we believe there are two main things holding back a rally.The first is the lack of acatalyst.What we need to see is an acceleration in organic growth for our names, ideally drivenby a growing contribution from Al-related revenue. Microsoft's earnings reaction this week,aswell as Snowflake's share price reaction following itslatest earnings report,provide goodexamples of whatcan happen when the numbers finally move. However, especiallyforthe Saasnames, it still seems too early to expect this. The second majorobstacleis the strongmomentum in the semiconductor space.Theinfrastructure buildout ("laying the train tracks") remains an important theme.While there havebeen recent moments of doubt, as shown in the two graphsbelow comparing the IGV and soxover the past month and past threemonths, the overarchingtrend remains intact (see Figs 4, 5,and 6). We can also see that the overall performance picture is still squarely in the Sox's favorwhenlooking atytd performance and performance since ChatGPT's launch.However,pastperformance is not necessarily an indicator of future returns, so we will continue monitoring thesituation. InthetablebelowwecomparetheIGVandSOxperformancesoverseveraltimeintervals MicrosoftCorp.4Q26Recap:Azureandoffic