COMPANIES TO WATCH: ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS

Google. Last year we ranked Google among "The Dozen" most influential companies in enterprise IT, saying "it casts a shadow far out of proportion to its actual footprint in the enterprise." The question is, will Google always be an influencer rather than an actual presence within large organizations? Sure, Google Search Appliance, Google Apps, Google Gears and Google Android will all make marks, but the last three were invented primarily to serve the broad consumer market. Given Google's might, we'll keep watching for more dedicated enterprise efforts.

Infor. Not to be left behind in the battle between Oracle and SAP, Infor has continued to advance its applications and architecture. Users can customize the rich, dynamic MyDay interface (introduced last year as a standard feature) to support more than 150 roles, keeping job-relevant tasks and alerts in view. Look for Infor's entry into SaaS this year.

InterSystems. We won't get to pervasive business intelligence through conventional BI interfaces. The idea behind InterSystems' DeepSee is delivering embedded real-time BI inside transactional applications. Developers embed prebuilt graphs, charts, reports and dashboards directly within applications. As a result, users see current operational data within a familiar interface so they can make better decisions and change workflows and business rules to optimize performance.

JackBe. Now more than ever, agile companies will carry the day. JackBe is all about being nimble, with component-based Web development tooling including a server, composer and connectors designed to quickly bring secure and reliable mashup applications to the enterprise.

SugarCRM. Launched as an open-source project in 2004, SugarCRM has been downloaded more than four million times. Well-supported Professional and Enterprise editions build on the Sugar Community Edition, which boasts a strong developer community. Commercial derivatives include SaaS and even an appliance-based (Sugar Cube) offering. Sugar sweetens the deal with third-party data integration and Web 2.0-style social networking features.

Workday. Conventional ERP vendors are dragging their feet and giving grudging lip service to software as a service. Meanwhile, Workday is forging ahead with an ever-richer suite of resource planning and resource management functionality. The latest upgrades include HR management tools that help managers evaluate staff costs and business expenses. A new Pay for Performance feature helps managers set employee and team goals and drive desired results with tailored compensation programs.