The economic climate of the past few years and the maturity and saturation of implemented business applications has proven difficult. This stressed environment has forced many vendors to increase maintenance rates and explore various channel, delivery and pricing options," said Chad Eschinger in Mumbai on Thursday, research director at Gartner. "Competition between enterprise suite and specialist, best-of-breed vendors has heightened. Although suite vendors are typically well-positioned within organizations to stall emerging-application purchases, there are significant opportunities for specialized vendors that offer differentiating domain and vertical solutions that are 'blind spots' in a suite provider's offering."