
Fresh from a powerful three-year surge, the software industry is entering a new period of uncertainty. Shares in Salesforce, the leading software-as-a-service player, surged more than 6 per cent on Thursday after a quarterly earnings report that dispelled recent worries about flagging growth. Meanwhile, tax and small business software company Intuit, which has seen its stock market value jump nearly threefold over the past four years, to $71bn, forecast another solid year of growth, sending its shares up 5 per cent.