Raimo‘s Roundup: The Big Comeback Debate In Software

Research evidence excerpt

Raimo‘s Roundup: The Big Comeback Debate In Software

Equity Research

31 July 2026

U.S Software

Raimo's Roundup: The Big

Comeback Debate In Software

The last few days along with instances a few weeks ago, we U.S. Software

had moments in which it felt like software could be back. POSITIVE

There is clearly potential here from a valuation and U.S. Software

Raimo Lenschow, CFA

positioning perspective, but the lack of catalysts and +1 212 526 2712

momentum in semis remain hurdles. raimo.lenschow@barclays.com

BCI, US

Saket Kalia, CFA

What Happened? +1 212 526 8465

We published the 18th volume of our Observability Industry Review, which focused on saket.kalia@barclays.com

Kubernetes (K8) monitoring and linked Datadog's strong performance to rapid K8 adoption over BCI, US

time (see our note here). Additionally, we published the 30th version of Raimo's Trend Spotter, Eamon Coughlin

where we took a deeper look into various web traffic trends across our sector (see the note +1 212 526 6142

here). eamon.coughlin@barclays.com

Microsoft reported better-than-expected 4Q26 earnings, led by Azure growth accelerating to

43% YoY in cc (vs. 39% last quarter). Management maintained its capital allocation discipline,

reiterating its positive FCF target by the end of FY27 and an unchanged capex outlook, driving

shares higher (see our recap here).

Circle (not covered) announced its acquisition of IBM's full blockchain patent portfolio for an

undisclosed amount. Patents include worldwide protections in banking, insurance, supply chain

verification, secure cloud operations, and more. The deal made Circle the leader in blockchain

patent technology in the US.

Snowflake introduced Cortex AI Gateway along with several other AI security innovations. The