Today, there are hundreds of unique, category-defining apps for businesses to choose from. Organizations and IT departments would be hard-pressed to test them all. Popularity matters. This year, we not only looked at apps by popularity (number of organizations that deploy that app), but also by usage (number of monthly active users) within an organization. Office 365 has led the pack of most popular apps based on number of customers since January 2015. Office 365’s lead becomes even more notable when you consider their number of monthly active users, which grew 92% in the past year. That said, the email race is never over. In our network, Google has been adding G Suite customers faster than Microsoft has been adding Office 365 customers over the past 3 months, 6 months and even the last 12 months. Notably, among Okta customers, G Suite grew its customer base 49% this past year, compared to Office 365 which grew 40%. In other news, wall-to-wall business apps like Workday and ServiceNow are much more “popular” based on number of monthly active users (2nd and 3rd most popular apps, respectively) than they are based on the number of customers using these apps. Conversely, AWS and DocuSign are the 3rd and 9th most popular apps in our network respectively, based on number of customers, yet they don’t make the top 15 based on number of monthly active users. This is likely because they are often accessed by a limited number of departments with an organization.
See the DataBusinesses @ Work
2018
Businesses @ Work takes an in-depth look into how organizations and people work today — exploring employees, partners, contractors and customers, and the apps and services they use to be productive.
Welcome to our January 2018 annual Businesses @ Work Report! Businesses @ Work does just what its name implies: it examines how organizations, along with the people who work for and with these organizations, get work done. We analyze our data and identify key trends on an annual basis; you can also find the most popular apps and fastest growing apps charts updated quarterly on our Businesses @ Work Dashboard.
You’re probably wondering, what’s changed in the last year? Turns out, quite a lot. When we dug into our data for 2017, we discovered: there’s more than one way for an app to be “popular,” companies are heavily investing in security apps (and they need to be!), stringent password policies and high assurance second factors are crucial, and the dev tools marketplace continues to grow. Learn more below.
How did Okta create this report?
To create all our Businesses @ Work reports, we anonymize Okta customer data from our network of thousands of companies, applications, custom integrations, and millions of daily authentications and verifications from countries around the world. Our customers and their employees, contractors, partners and customers use Okta to log in to devices, apps and services, and leverage security features to protect their sensitive data. Our customers span every industry and vary in size, from small businesses to enterprises with tens of thousands of employees. As you read this report, keep in mind that this data is only representative of Okta's customers, the applications we connect to and the ways in which users access these applications through our service.
Unless otherwise noted, this report presents and analyzes data from November 1, 2016 to October 31, 2017, which we refer to as “this year,” “this past year,” “today” and “in 2017.” Similarly, when we refer to “last year” or “in 2016”, we are referring to data from November 1, 2015 to October 31, 2016. 2015 refers to the same period in its respective year.
Key Findings
The most popular apps of 2017
The most popular apps of 2017
Tear down this wall. Organizations are going borderless for security and collaboration
Tear down this wall. Organizations are going borderless for security and collaboration
Our fastest growing apps chart makes one thing abundantly clear: companies are investing in security and collaboration tools.
- Securing a borderless world: 7 of the 15 fastest growing apps in our network this past year (Jamf, KnowBe4, DigiCert, Cisco Umbrella, Mimecast, Sophos and CloudFlare) are security tools or have security use-cases. Jamf, which provides software for managing and securing Apple devices, is a notable n