ERP Market Surges in 2006

The enterprise resource planning (ERP) market is experiencing double-digit growth this year, and is expected to continue to grow at an average of 10% over the next five years, Boston consulting firm AMR Research reported Tuesday.

Jim Shepherd, senior vice president of research at AMR, said the ERP market continues to benefit from a widespread acceptance of the idea that business must have integrated information systems to be competitive. “The integrated versus best-of-breed debate still goes on in some organizations, but the suite advocates are clearly winning,” Shepherd said in releasing the market forecast.

AMR predicted that the market will grow about 14% in 2006, from $25.4 billion in 2005 to $29 billion this year. SAP continues to be the biggest player in the market with an estimated 43% of market share, or about $12.5 billion in revenue in 2006. Oracle was second with 23% market share, or $6.7 billion; however, it had the fastest growth rate of the ERP vendors covered, growing at 29% from 2005 to 2006.

Next in line was Sage Group with 5% market share, followed by Microsoft at 4% and SSA Global at 3%. SSA Global was acquired in July by Atlanta-based Infor Global Solutions. AMR did not provide a market share estimate for Infor, which has been actively acquiring companies in the ERP arena.