Intelligent Enterprise

COMPANIES TO WATCH: ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS

Editors' Choice Awards 2008

Chordiant. CRM was a start, but customer experience management seeks a broader understanding of interactions at every touchpoint. Chordiant's decision management tools let companies analyze data from many customer touchpoints, so they can understand outcomes and apply rules to improve each interaction. The result is higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

eBay. Most people don't think of eBay as a SaaS (software as a service) company, but it provides the largest array of e-commerce services available on-demand. eBay has pioneered APIs (application programming interfaces) and interfaces that have enabled thousands of companies to use its services as the beginning, middle and end of their product sales cycles.

Infor Global Solutions. A rollup of some 21 companies acquired over the last five years, Infor is a bantam-weight applications player that leads on total cost of ownership. With some 70,000 customers (many tied to component companies including Baan, GEAC Systems, Epiphany and Extensity), Infor has done a great job of supporting business applications with strategic and operational performance management.

NetSuite. For true converts to the SaaS model, NetSuite offers the most complete suite of on-demand ERP, CRM and e-commerce apps. What's more, it offers a healthy dose of supporting BI capabilities. This company has a big head start in delivering what larger vendors are just now introducing.

Nexaweb Technologies. In the young RIA (rich Internet application) era, this company is an old hand. Nexaweb is a perfect example of an agile developer adapting its enterprise-oriented products for important trends: SOA (service-oriented architecture), Ajax and Web 2.0.

StrikeIron. An innovator of "service leasing," StrikeIron has set standards that are now being followed by much larger players. Its catalog of data services, application integration services and data cleansing/enhancement services continues to expand.