• FBR & Co’s Daniel H. Ives said that the Software sector could be characterized by M&A, growth and cloud spending in 2016.
• Next-gen technology vendors seem to be the winners, at the expense of traditional tech vendors, Ives added.

Analyst Daniel Ives said that investor interest in 2016 could continue to be centered on several of the same next-gen software technologies from the past couple of years.

He added, however, that the vendors that are “disproportionately poised” to benefit from increasing adoption and more broad-based consumption would be front and center, with these technologies moving gradually toward becoming “the core DNA of next-generation data centers for enterprises/governments worldwide.”

Given the ongoing data explosion, Ives believes that vendors with strong cloud, security, and big data analytics offerings are well positioned to leverage robust market growth in 2016.

He explained that there seems to be “a transformational era of IT spending” during which the next-gen technology vendors seem to be “the clear winners” at the expense of traditional tech vendors, such as Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL), HP Inc (NYSE: HPQ), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), and EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) / Dell.

Ives commented that various fast-growing software companies seem to be good acquisition targets and significant M&A activity could be expected in 2016. He identified the top M&A marriages for 2016 as:

1. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) and NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP)
2. Cisco and FireEye Inc (NASDAQ: FEYE)
3. IBM and Splunk Inc (NASDAQ: SPLK)
4. IBM and Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ: QLIK)
5. HP and Box Inc (NYSE: BOX)
6. HP and Qlik
7. Oracle and NetSuite Inc (NYSE: N)
8. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Imperva Inc (NYSE: IMPV)
9. Microsoft and Qualys Inc (NASDAQ: QLYS)
10. Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) and Proofpoint Inc (NASDAQ: PFPT)