Timeline And History Of Erp Software

By Author: Nix Polkinghorne
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For those people who want to know the timeline and history of ERP software as well as how emerging technologies are altering the market’s plate tectonics, this timeline of ERP software is an excellent primer.

The timeline and history of ERP software is summarized as follows:

1960's: In the 1960's companies were insistently implementing mainframe computers such as IBM's 360 series. Companies were finally able to move their financial accounting management and inventory management functions off of paper and onto computers and mainframes. Though, limitations in processing power averted production planning on the basis of integrated accounting, procurement, and inventory information.

1970's: The arrival of more powerful minicomputers and mainframes would enable Materials Requirements Planning, also known as MRP. MRP was manufacturing software systems that integrated inventory information, bill of material information and the master production program to determine exact materials requirements. In 1972 four German engineers leave IBM to found ‘Systems Analysis and Program Development’ that would become ...
... today's major enterprise software vendor. Later in the decade, Lawson Software in 1975, Oracle Corporation in 1977, JD Edwards in 1977, and Bann (at the present Infor) in 1978, these future ERP Leaders are founded.

1980: While MRP (Materials Requirements Planning) proved valuable, manufacturers found that recurrent alterations in sales predictions were distorting their ability to plan competently and production often failed to line up with demand. A new category of software, named as Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) emerged to incorporate capacity constraints by merging materials planning with capacity information associated to plant, finance, and people.

Late 1980's: With extensive adoption of PCs (Personal Computers), client-server computing comes out. By providing every employee with a PC and integrating data storage on the server. This theatrical advance in technology would bring about the creation of thousands of new software companies such as PeopleSoft in 1987. For the time, mainframe growth would remove and eliminate many of the early vendors.

1990’s: Gartner group change the term Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which encloses MRP and MRP II, as well as a variety of other applications such as: supply chain management, product lifecycle management, customer management, logistics, order processing, human resource and financial management, etc. In 1992 SAP releases R/3, a completely re-written client-server version of its ERP suite.

1999: As the year 2000 was closer, many businesses finished their Y2K-related implementations. At the same time, big enterprises started diverting IT budgets to invest zealously in "dot com” (.com) era technologies like emerging e-commerce functionality. This result is a major decline in spending in ERP that signal the end of ERP's splendor days.

2000’s: Industry watchers had long surprises when Microsoft would move beyond desktop applications into more complicated applications in 2000. Microsoft obtained accounting systems vendor “Great Plains Software” in December 2000. As Great Plains was targeted at small and mid size companies, Microsoft would soon lift up market by obtaining another vendor “Navision”. The beginning of the web browser and the theatrical growth of the Internet caused web-based computing. In a clear indication of market maturity, industry consolidation hastened between 2003 and 2007. In 2007 SAP acquired “Business Objects”, the market leader in Business Intelligence (BI) software. After that in 2009 Cloud Computing has appeared as the next architectural shift in the software manufacturing market.

At present there is lots of new ERP software companies are competing in the market. Toward that end, we see most of companies focused on making their systems less expensive to implement and maintain and easier to use. In future also there will be a frenetic growth to satisfy their existing customers.

This was the timeline and history of ERP software that will help you to know about past of ERP software.

Read about Cost of ERP Ownership. Also know Top Ten ERP Software. Read about Factors for Successful ERP Implementation.