With the growing economy, 2006 should expect more wholesale distributors to assess the state of their existing software applications and technology, according to the results gathered by the Brown Smith Wallace Consulting Group. The economy remained healthy in 2005 with average quarterly GDP growth at around 3.5%. Business investment in equipment and software grew at almost twice this rate. Report highlights included:

• New system sales and professional services, since the Y2K phenomena, are expected to continue for the next three years.

• Legacy systems will be replaced by systems that are easier to use.

• The demand for products to be “interoperable” or the ability of different systems to work together on a common task is growing.

• “Software as a service” and “Services Oriented Architecture (SOA)” are buzz words that will be heard five years down the line.

• XML will become the preferred approach for describing all forms of data.

• Over the next four to six years, the wholesale distribution market is expected to adopt this new technology.