With the exception of a child mowing grass or selling lemonade, today’s business relies on software packages to operate in a smooth and efficient manner. When you get right down to it, even these small operations might use software, too! Quite a few children keep track of their earnings from mowing lawns, babysitting or selling lemonade in a spreadsheet. Let’s take a look at a few of the leading business software packages:
1. Microsoft Office
Most businesses rely on Microsoft’s suite of office productivity products for their word processing and spreadsheet needs. Everyone from students to professionals uses PowerPoint to create presentations, and Access provides a fairly robust database tool that can even integrate with tables created by other software packages. While both Apple and open source products have copied the functionality that this set of applications offers, the Microsoft Office suite continues to be the most commonly used software in this genre.
2. Oracle
When it comes to enterprise-level database schemas, Oracle is the most popular software available today. It is reliable and easy-to-use. Most other software applications are written to work with Oracle databases in addition to other file structures. Due to its popularity, large IT shops have no problem finding experienced Oracle professionals to create customized applications, as well.
3. PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft has created a wide variety of robust applications for different business areas including accounting and human resources. Although this software works fairly well out of the box, it is easily modified to fit an individual business’s specific needs. PeopleSoft systems can work with a wide range of databases, including Oracle, which makes it easy for customized reports and other programs to interface with the core application. Just like Oracle’s popularity makes staffing easy, there are plenty of PeopleSoft experts in the job market today.
In today’s marketplace, everyone from basic suppliers to billion-dollar e-commerce sites rely on layer after layer of business software.