Is software dead? Reports are greatly exaggerated

There's a rising chorus that the big selloff in software stocks — the dreaded Saaspocalypse — has been overdone.

Why it matters: Yes, AI is upending the software business. No, that doesn't mean software is going extinct.

Where it stands: Over the past few weeks, software stocks had their deepest selloff outside of a recession in 30 years, JPMorgan analysts noted earlier this month.

• Although the decline in share prices now appears to be moderating, investors are still, to put it technically, freaking out.
• "We have been asked more questions on software this past month than in the past 25 years," UBS strategists wrote in a note yesterday.

State of play: "Software is down, not out," says Rich Ross, a senior managing director at Evercore ISI That's the growing sentiment among cooler and more seasoned heads inside the tech industry and on Wall Street.

• Those arguments got a little boost after the stock price of Figma, a design software firm, jumped after it reported a 40% increase in revenue from last year, and its CFO said it was "winning in AI." (The stock is still down 30% for the year.)

Zoom in: There's even a case that AI will make software more necessary, explains Steven Sinofsky, former head of Office and Windows at Microsoft, in a lengthy Substack.

• "AI changes what we build and who builds it, but not how much needs to be built," he writes.
• JPMorgan analysts put it more wonkishly: "Emerging evidence suggests that AI is more likely to be additive to software workflows."
• In other words, software companies are moving to fold in AI features, "thereby enhancing existing platforms and creating upsell opportunities rather than rendering incumbents obsolete overnight."

Flashback: Sinofsky compares the current AI disruptions to three past pivot points in tech, all moments when people predicted an apocalypse, but what happened was more nuanced.

• Advent of the PC. People predicted the data center would be eliminated, among other blown calls. (Data center growth now is a huge and growing part of the economy.)
• Shift to online retail. Amazon was supposed to crush Walmart and all other stores. Walmart now has a $1 trillion market cap.

• Pivot to streaming. Music was going to be free, along with information. (The tally of subscriptions I'm shelling out for each month tells a different story.)

How it works: There is no software apocalypse. That doesn't mean there isn't enormous change and pain. There is a repricing of stocks, and some IPOs will never see the light of day.

Who survives? The software companies more likely to make it have:

• Proprietary data. Some software companies own information that you can't get anywhere else, for example, Bloomberg terminals. "You can't just scrape it. You can't recreate it," Nicolas Bustamante, the CEO of Fintool, a financial services AI company, writes on X.
• Regulatory lock-in. This is software, in the health services space, for example, that deals with sensitive areas that can't simply be scrapped.
• Network effects. If everyone is using the same specific tool, they're not likely to pivot to a vibe-coded DIY app.

Reality check: Worth noting no one knows what is about to happen.

The bottom line: To butcher a line from Mark Twain, reports of software's death are greatly exaggerated.