This IDC study highlights the trends and prevailing sentiments of accounting and financial management (AFM) application vendors as to how they position themselves, stack up against each other, and expand themselves to take advantage of macroeconomic conditions such as globalization and corporate governance. The study also details the market shares of more than 100 AFM applications vendors between 2001 and 2003 as well as profiles of major AFM vendors, including Intuit, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Sage, and SAP. The AFM applications market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9% over the next five years, with some parts of the world growing even faster than that rate.

Albert Pang, director, Enterprise Applications Research, said, "Fast-growing Asia/Pacific in particular will see strong growth as companies are either installing new systems or leveraging the latest AFM solutions to instill financial discipline throughout their organizations and thus greater confidence among customers and investors. In fact, companies in Europe and North America are sharing the same belief.''