The distinctiveness of ERP systems became more evident in 1994 when SAP
AG released its next-generation software known as R/3. The release of R/3 also
marked a shift in technology platforms from the mainframe to the increasingly
popular UNIX-based client-server architecture. In the ensuing years,
manufacturing and some service companies began to make heavy
investments in ERP systems offered by SAP and its major competitors such
as Oracle, Baan, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards. Since activities related to
planning and installing ERP are, generally, more costly than the software
product itself, consultants and systems integrators have also moved
aggressively into the implementation market. The ERP-related revenues for
each of the five leaders in the consulting and systems integration markets
exceeded $1 billion in 1998 (Escalle et al., 1999). Advanced manufacturing
research (AMR), one of the principal ERP industry observers, is forecasting
that the ERP market for software sales and ancillary services will exceed
annual revenues of $50 billion by 2002.