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Enterprise software vendors are feeling the sting of a more uncertain economy. Sales were already sliding before the Sept. 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and those events are sure to push the costly and time-consuming projects a bit farther down some companies' list of priorities.
Even the customer-relationship management software sector, once viewed as recession-resistant because of its potential to increase sales, has begun to weaken as companies look for cheaper solutions or extend the pilot stage of large CRM implementations. Enterprise software companies such as PeopleSoft, SAP, and Siebel Systems were hard-hit on Wall Street last week.
"Software is largely discretionary in the short term," says Charles Phillips, enterprise software analyst for Morgan Stanley Dean...