Enterprise software is a collection of computer programs that have common business applications, tools for modelling how the entire organization works, and development tools for building applications unique to the organization. The software is intended to solve an enterprise-wide problem, rather than a departmental problem. Enterprise level software aims to improve the enterprise's productivity and efficiency by providing business logic support functionality. According to Martin Fowler, "Enterprise applications are about the display, manipulation, and storage of large amounts of often complex data and the support or automation of business processes with that data." Although there is no single, widely accepted list of enterprise software characteristics, they generally include performance, scalability, and robustness. Furthermore, enterprise software typically has interfaces to other enterprise software and is centrally managed. Enterprise application software performs business functions such as order processing, procurement, production scheduling, customer information management, energy management, and accounting. It is typically hosted on servers and provides simultaneous services to many users, typically over a computer network. This is in contrast to a single-user application that is executed on a user's personal computer and serves only one user at a time.
Enterprise system
Enterprise systems are large-scale enterprise software packages that support business processes, information flows, reporting, and data analytics in complex organizations. While ES are generally packaged enterprise application software systems they can also be bespoke, custom developed systems created to support a specific organization's needs. Types of enterprise systems include:
Although data warehousing or business intelligence systems are enterprise-wide packaged application software often sold by ES vendors, since they do not directly support execution of business processes, they are often excluded from the term. Enterprise systems are built on software platforms, such as SAP's NetWeaver and Oracle's Fusion, and databases. From a hardware perspective, enterprise systems are the servers, storage and associated software that large businesses use as the foundation for their IT infrastructure. These systems are designed to manage large volumes of critical data. These systems are typically designed to provide high levels of transaction performance and data security.
Types
Enterprise software can be categorized by business function. Each type of enterprise application can be considered a "system" due to the integration with a firm's business processes. Categories of enterprise software may overlap due to this systemic interpretation. For example, IBM's Business Intelligence platform, integrates with a predictive analytics platform and can obtain records from its database packages. Blurred lines between package functions make delimitation difficult, and in many ways larger software companies define these somewhat arbitrary categories. Nevertheless, certain industry standard product categories have emerged, and these are shown below :
Enterprise Resource Planning - which is a broad category covering: Accounting, Human Resource, Corporate performance and governance, Customer Services, Sales, Procurement, Production, Distribution
