2008 was an educational year for the ERP vendor community. From a revenue perspective, the majority grew their top-line revenue year over year, although it flattened by a few percentage points from historical growth rates. There was both good news (the first half of the year was relatively strong, with maintenance revenue proving extremely valuable during the height of the economic turmoil) and bad news (new license revenue declined in the third and fourth quarters year over year for almost all vendors), resulting in overall revenue that was pretty much flat. All vendors claim strong pipelines into 2009, but admit new business is taking an eternity to close. It’s not that the cost of sales has increased, but that closure rates are less certain.
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