AMR Research released a report that stated the enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications market grew to $25.4B in 2005, and will reach $29B in 2006. Over the next five years, the market will grow at an average of 10%.

The ERP market continues to benefit from a widespread acceptance of the idea that businesses must have integrated information systems to be competitive. Management and IT organizations are realizing that the most effective way to satisfy this need is to purchase an ERP package that features broad functionality and pre-built integration.

“The integrated versus best-of-breed debate still goes on in some organizations, but the suite advocates are clearly winning,” said Jim Shepherd, senior vice president of research at AMR Research. “In addition, we now see many of the remaining ERP vendors compete effectively with companies of all sizes.”

Continuing the trend of fewer vendors owning a larger share of the market, SAP and Oracle now represent 65% of new license sales.

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