A survey by Duke University and CFO Magazine found that 40 percent of U.S. companies plan to acquire assets in 2008. One-third of those plan to buy a company or companies, and 22 percent plan to acquire assets of another company but not the entire company.

Forrester's Leaver says that she expects 2008 will see more consolidation, primarily in industry-specific niche application sets, adding: "I don't think it'll be as big as 2007. It terms of the really big offerings, there aren't that many left."

The Rise of the Vendor Ecosystem

Before you roll your eyes at the sight of another vendor buzzword like "ecosystem," at least consider the logic and potential importance of the New World Order of vendor management in 2008.

As a natural extension of all the consolidation, and with fewer midsize and bigger players to choose from (which is relatively speaking, of course; there are thousands of smaller software vendors out there), CIOs will have fewer options to choose from. That said, the enterprise vendors realize that innovation and their future success is all tied to their relationships with smaller players, business partners and developer communities.

So while CIOs may be buying an SAP or Oracle software package on the surface, they should also do their homework and figure out who are the businesses and alliances that are a part of SAP's ecosystem, for example, and how they match with the CIOs' enterprise technology strategies. "The ERP system is basically a platform for an ecosystem to develop around," says Gartner's Woods. "This is the way you have to look at sourcing your ERP today, and the trend will only become more dominant in the future. "

Forrester's Leaver stresses that CIOs need to become less of an "observer" with their application investment strategies (for instance, letting one or two of the large vendors drive their strategy). In fact, CIOs need to be more proactive about determining which vendors' ecosystem synchs up best with their own long-term ERP strategy.

This is critical because if your vendor's ecosystem includes industry-specific applications (say you're in the retail industry) that meet your long-term needs, you will have an easier time identifying and integrating the next killer application into your ERP backbone.

The differences in the major vendors' plans are obvious, Woods says. Oracle, for example, has bought or developed in-house industry-specific apps, such as in the retail or telecom space, whereas SAP has relied on its platform and its partners to develop its future killer applications, he says.