This Is How Newly Public Appian Is Going to Compete With Salesforce, Oracle and IBM

Appian (APPN) - Get Report shares surged some 35% on Thursday following the company's public debut on the Nasdaq. 

The software company faces competition from the likes of Salesforce (CRM) - Get Report , Oracle (ORCL) - Get Report and IBM (IBM) - Get Report .

While the company was unprofitable in 2016, CEO Matt Calkins told TheStreet that a profit was made last quarter.