Today, Tercera officially launched its 2025-2026 Tercera 30 research, highlighting the 30 software ecosystems we believe hold significant potential for technology services firms.
We develop this annual research – now in its fourth year – by gathering and analyzing third-party data across more than 200 enterprise software companies. We combine this data with primary research that we collect in a number of different ways, including a survey of 300+ service providers and interviews with channel leaders, service leaders, bankers, analysts and enterprise buyers.
These quantitative and qualitative insights are then weighted based on what we believe creates a thriving environment for services firms. The end result is a short list of vendors that offer the greatest opportunities for services firms looking to build, scale or diversify their business, as well as insights into how these ecosystems are evolving in the AI era.
To access the full report, including vendor profiles and key themes from the research, visit our Tercera 30 page.
Changes This Year
This year, we replaced our “Market Challengers” category, which had focused solely on privately held companies, with a new one named “Market Builders”. This decision allows us to focus more on ecosystem maturity than ownership structure, and reflects the growing number of large companies that are choosing to remain private by choice.
Six companies fell off this year’s list, including one that has played an over-sized role in the global economy (Nvidia) and one that has been a long-time Anchor for thousands of partners (Adobe). These, and the other exits from last year’s list, were less about company performance, and more about where we see gravitational pull – namely in data, cybersecurity and AI.
This year’s exits were less about company performance, and more about where we see gravitational pull – namely in data, cybersecurity and AI.
We have five brand new vendors on our list this year (IBM, Palantir, Rubrik, Saviynt, ThoughtSpot), and one returning vendor that had dropped off last year (Crowdstrike). We also saw a number of players move between categories based on our change in methodology mentioned above. This led to our first new Anchor (Databricks) since the inaugural Tercera 30.
This year, we also supplemented our insights with interviews from a wider range of enterprise IT buyers and ISV channel leaders than we had in the past. To help with this and to surface deeper insights, we leveraged Bridgetown Research’s AI-native research platform, which uses voice-enabled AI agents to conduct qualitative interviews and apply analytics on structured and unstructured data. We also filtered our inputs into a 2×2 grid to visually graph vendors relative to each other based on growth rates and services potential.
Who is on the Tercera 30 for 2025-2026?
The report includes a mix of large vendors with more mature partner ecosystems (our Market Anchors), along with fast-growing platforms and specialized vendors that have more nascent partner ecosystems (our Market Movers and Builders).
Market Anchors:
Large software vendors with more mature partner ecosystems
AWS
Databricks
Google Cloud
Microsoft Azure
Oracle
Salesforce
SAP
ServiceNow
Snowflake
Workday
Market Movers
Large and mid-size software vendors with growth potential and evolving partner ecosystems
Atlassian
Dynatrace
Contentstack
Crowdstrike
IBM
Okta
OneStream
Palo Alto Networks
Shopify
Stripe
Market Builders
High-growth, high-potential software companies with more nascent partner ecosystems
Anthropic
Celonis
commercetools
MongoDB
OpenAI
Palantir
Rubrik
Saviynt
ThoughtSpot
Zscaler
Key Themes Highlighted in the Report
The research we conducted for the Tercera 30 and our recent AI playbook for services uncovered insights into how the enterprise software market is shifting and partner strategies alongside it. Below are six themes highlighted and analyzed in the Tercera 30 report.
1. The Great AI Washing
AI washing is rampant and every Tercera 30 vendor is racing to build agents. This is creating confusion but also opportunity for partners who can separate hype from reality.
2. Data is the New Cloud
Data platforms are the new power players in enterprise tech, with platforms like Databricks, Oracle and Snowflake poised to become the next hyperscalers.
3. Systems of Record Defend Their Turf
Enterprise giants are under siege from AI-native challengers. To stay entrenched, incumbents like Salesforce, SAP, Workday and IBM are fighting back by ramping up R&D and M&A.
4. Services and Software Collide
The wall between software and consulting is disappearing, with AI driving a new category of services-as-software. This convergence is causing a shift in partner playbooks.
5. Vertical Focus = Revenue Advantage
Vertically oriented services firms are winning more AI-related revenue, while vertical AI vendors present new partner opportunities for those who can navigate these tricky waters.
6. Expect Even More M&A
Tech M&A is heating up again, with more than 40 acquisitions across the Tercera 30. Dealmaking is redrawing the partner map, and services firms could be the next targets.
Download the full report and vendor profiles here.
