SAP to outplay Oracle, says AMR

SAP will continue to dominate the business software applications market this year and take the top spot in the hotly contested North American business software market, predicts a report from AMR Research.

The analyst firm said that SAP would have 43 percent market share in 2005, while Oracle will have 19 percent, down slightly from the combined Oracle and PeopleSoft revenue in 2004.

"Recent quarterly trends indicate that SAP will assume the leadership position in 2005. SAP's revenue base has been rapidly shifting from Europe to North America," said AMR, adding; "Oracle and PeopleSoft as independent companies had combined revenue for North America that was larger than SAP in 2004, but that is unlikely to hold in 2005." 

The analyst firm sees software vendor consolidation to continue as major suite vendors vie for account control by buying and building functional and geographic breadth to their portfolios.  As a result, in 2005, the top five companies will account for 74 per cent of the industry's revenue.  In comparison, in 1999, the top five business software makers stood at 59 per cent of total sales, AMR said. 

The free report looks at key ERP trends, such as how foreign exchange rates have had a major impact on the ERP market and overall applications market.   In addition to license revenue growth, favorable exhange rates boosted SAP's revenues last year.