Top ERP predictions for 2011

While ERP vendors have been making moves toward cloud computing for some years nevertheless, the situation will get serious in 2011 as clients demand that option, according to Frank Scavo, managing principal of the IT strategy firm Strativa.

"However the real action will be with vendors that have built or re-engineered their products from the ground up to take full advantage of the capabilities of cloud-based computing, just as multi-tenancy and low-impact revision upgrades," he added. "As the economic recovery improves new deal flow, vendors who do not move beyond hosting will find themselves increasingly out of consideration."

The "game-changing technologies" for cloud-based ERP are PaaS as so then as BPM, which allow the extension and customization of cloud software, Hamerman added.

Admittedly, this may be too visionary, since like all software vendors, SAP is heavily dependent on maintenance revenue.

Anyone tired of the word "social" uttered in connection with business software should brace themselves for another long year. In 2011, the market will be flooded by social-themed ERP product tweaks, integrations and innovations, Wang said.

The number of downloaded mobile applications will leap from 10.9 billion this year to 76.9 billion in 2014, and revenue will experience a greater than 60 percent compound annual growth rate in the straightway several years, topping $35 billion in 2014, IDC said.

Among ERP vendors, SAP stands out as betting the biggest on mobility as something that not only generates revenue, however shatters its image as a provider of monolithic ERP systems. Co-CEO Bill McDermott promised repeatedly this year that SAP will give clients the ability to get business information on "any device, any place, at any time."

The company is before long due to deliver a converged mobile middleware platform based on research it acquired through the purchase of Sybase in June, and has already been pumping out an array of mobile applications.

Fusion Applications are supposed to combine the best attributes of Oracle's various ERP lines into a high-powered, then-generation fleet of applications that are infused with BI and available in modular form.

"It's clear that the value-add of Azure has to be about driving research into the enterprise, and that's not something the average Office or Windows developer in effect gets. Nevertheless Dynamics partners live and breath this concept every day," he wrote.

Third, Dynamics itself will help Azure grow and innovate, Greenbaum contends. "During SQL Server, Sharepoint, Communications Server, Windows Server, and other pieces of the stack will have a big play in Azure, the customer working in that innovative new Azure app will most likely be directly interfacing a piece of AX, or Dynamics CRM. That makes Dynamics essential to Azure, and vice versa."

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general innovation breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com