Demand and support for enterprise applications integration in Nigeria
Published online on June 27, 2013
Abstract
The demand and support for enterprise applications integration (EAI) in Nigeria was investigated. The findings show that the demand and support for EAI are driven by a number of factors, including concern for data/information integration, a common interface for all enterprise applications, improved communication and faster data transfer, real-time data capture and access to information across various networks, as well as data and information integrity across various systems. The IT companies in Nigeria are following the progress of technology and are poised to respond to it in their approaches to EAI solutions. Their future approaches will be influenced to the greatest extent by progress in Graphical User Interface (GUI) and then by developments in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Operating Systems, Software as a Service (SaaS), Parameterization of applications for easy customization, Applications Service Provision, and Open Source Systems in that order. They believe that Nigeria has the greatest capacity in Software as a Service (SaaS) and Software as Secured Service (SaSS). A growing number of companies are using open source tools in developing and implementing EAI solutions, and this is an indication of a market that is taking on its own character but also a subscription to the democratization of software access. The popularity of SQL Server and its varieties, closely followed by Oracle and Java/Javascript, as EAI tools in Nigeria is probably a reflection of their prominence on the international scene.