Famous Investor Dan Ives Calls Software Apocalypse a ‘Generational Buy': Is He Right?

Group 1: Market Overview - Software stocks have experienced significant declines, with Salesforce down 28%, ServiceNow down 30%, and Microsoft down 17% year-to-date [1] - Dan Ives describes the current selloff as the worst he has seen in 25 years, arguing that investors are mistakenly viewing enterprise software as obsolete in the AI era [1] Group 2: Company-Specific Insights - Salesforce is trading at 14.2x forward earnings, despite generating $900 million in AI Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) that is growing at 120% year-over-year [1] - ServiceNow reported Q3 revenue of $3.41 billion, up 22% year-over-year, but still faced a stock decline due to market fears surrounding AI disruption [1] - Microsoft, despite being a leader in AI integration, has seen a 17% decline this year, attributed to lower-than-expected forward Azure growth projections [1] Group 3: Analyst Perspectives - Ives believes the selloff indicates a disconnect between market pricing and fundamental value, similar to past market crashes where quality companies traded at depressed valuations [1] - Morgan Stanley estimates that generative AI could add approximately $400 billion to the Enterprise Software Total Addressable Market by 2028, while software multiples have compressed by 33% since October 2025 [1] - Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon suggests that the AI-driven software selloff is overdone, indicating that many companies will adapt successfully [1]