This is a guest post from Houston Neal who is looking to gather feedback on his ERP Software Timeline.

ERP software has come a long way since the days of performing accounting and inventory management on mainframe computers (e.g. IBM’s 360 series). In the 70’s we saw the introduction of material requirements planning (MRP) and the founding of today’s ERP leaders (SAP, Oracle). The 80’s included the emergence of MRP II and introduction of the coming Y2K bug. “Enterprise Resource Planning” was coined in the 90’s, and “merger mania” dominated the early 21st century. Today, cloud computing is all the rage. Will “social ERP” be the next game-changer?

To understand the context of current enterprise software events, check out the manufacturing & ERP software timeline at Software Advice. They have included 17 key events that have shaped the industry over the last 50 years. Feel free to share your ideas on what should be added. They want to expand the timeline to 30-50 events/dates with the help of industry experts. Sort of like a “wiki” timeline. If you have any ideas, please forward them on to Houston Neal (houston@softwareadvice.com).

 Ian Graham