For the most part, the dominant players in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software space include Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), SAP (NYSE: SAP), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

But, there are a variety of mid-size players trying to compete. One is Lawson (NASDAQ: LWSN).

And this week, the company reported its latest quarterly report. Revenues increased 9.4% to $233 million but net income dropped 55% to $3.7 million, or $0.02 per share. Why? Well, Lawson took a charge for its exposure to auction-rate securities.

The quarter saw $51 million in signed software contracts, up from $42 million in the same period a year ago (there were four deals in excess of $1 million). For the most part, Lawson is getting traction from investments in its technology platform -- as well as its salesforce.

For the year, Lawson forecasts revenues of $920 million to $925 million. EPS (earnings per share) is expected to range from $0.43 to $0.47.

However, Wall Street is still concerned about the competition and macro environment. As a result, the shares of Lawson have been languishing this year, dropping from $9.94 to $7.14.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.

"My favorite aggressive speculation for 2008 is Enerplus Resources (NYSE: ERF)," says Roger Conrad, editor of Canadian Edge.

"Over the past 18 months, Canadian oil and gas producer trust has endured a trial by fire. First natural gas prices started tumbling.

"Then the Conservative party government announced it would begin taxing trusts as corporations starting in 2011, and restricted the number of shares trust can issue. Finally, this fall investors have bailed out of everything remotely economically sensitive.

"Through it all, however, the Enerplus has remained rock-solid as a business. For starters, the yield of nearly 13% -- paid monthly -- is backed by a modest 70% payout ratio. And that ratio was achieved by selling oil in the third quarter at less than $70 a barrel.

Founded in 1999, Intacct is now a key player in the on-demand software space. The focus is on enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small and mid-size companies (of which there are about 2,000 customers).

To ramp up growth, the company raised $14 million in venture capital. The investors include Sigma Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Emergence Capital Partners.

I had a chance to interview the company's CEO, Mike Braun. He is a veteran of the tech world, having worked at high level positions for IBM (NYSE: IBM) as well as a variety of upstart companies.

Q: Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) just reported a record quarter. What's your perspective on the company's future growth prospects?

A: It was a fantastic quarter -- further demonstrating the momentum of the new "on-demand" computing model. Salesforce continues to focus on new customer acquisition, which drives high expenses in the near term, but you can get a preview on the future by looking at the cash flow growth of 197% YTY. Once companies move to this delivery model, whether with salesforce.com or Intacct, they love it and will stay for life.

It must be nice to be a tech billionaire.  Look at Hasso Plattner, a co-founder and supervisory board chief at the German software powerhouse, SAP.

While the typical US software billionaire would not speculate on buyers for their own company, that's not the case with Plattner.  In fact, he named the three possible buyers for his company:  IBM, Microsoft and Google.

Of course, IBM and Microsoft make a lot of sense. Both companies have a large corporate business. For example, two years ago, both Microsoft and SAP talked about a deal. The problem, though, was the antitrust mess.

But Google?  Well, maybe.