European market doing well. According to Truffle Capital, the venture risk capital company's top 100 European software companies show that despite the crisis, the market is doing well. The global annual turnover for software companies leapt by 20% in 2011 to €37.2 billion, with profits increasing by 14% to €6.6 billion. According to Truffle Capital, however, there are a number of sharp disparities: the top 25 companies on the list account for 76% of sales as opposed to 63% in 2010. The five top companies alone account for 53% of turnover and 66% of profits. The 50 companies at the bottom of the league account for barely 5% of profits. With profits of €13.98 billion, the German company, SAP (15 860 employees) is ahead by a long shot. It is followed by, Dassault Systèmes (€1.78 billion in turnover; 4,000 employees), Sage (€1.46 billion; 1,740 employees), Wincor Nixdorf (€1.17 billion; 556 employees) and Hexagon (€1.15 billion; 2,280 employees). The 15 German groups account for 48.8% of overall turnover, the 22 British companies 14.8% and 17 French publishers 10.9%. Although profits are not increasing as rapidly as revenues, this is partly because European publishers invested €5.7 billion in R&D in 2011 (+28% compared to 2010 and +71% over six years). This investment accounted for 86% of their profits. For 2013, 43% of them are forecasting growth of between 5% and 15% in their revenues, thanks to “cloud computing” developments and the SaaS (“Software as a service”) facility which provides a pay on demand approach instead of the previous licence system (with maintenance and update services and other services that include advice and membership systems). (IL/transl.fl)