ERP vendor Lawson Software is shaping up to take customers from its mid-market rivals, and move up market to hurt Oracle and SAP in their traditional "sweet spots", according to chief executive Harry Debes.

Speaking to IT Week today, Debes argued that rivals such as Oracle and Microsoft may suffer a backlash from customers as they force them into " unnatural upgrades". He added that the big guns may also be taking their eye off the ball in trying to complete their massive "next generation apps" projects, like Oracle's Project Fusion.

"I predict in the next twelve months that Lawson will take away PeopleSoft, JDEdwards and Infor customers from those incumbents and move up market to take away traditional SAP and Oracle clients and hurt them in their traditional sweet spots," said Debes.

David Bradshaw of analyst firm Ovum argued that Lawson has a chance of leading the ERP mid-market with its strategy of concentrating its efforts on very sector-specific solutions.

"The way to tackle the mid-market is by going at the verticals – it's a widely split market and the potential is there to gain dominance," he added. " But I'm not convinced that Lawson has the kind of capabilities to [compete with] Oracle and SAP [at the high end]."

He added that customers would likely stick with Oracle until Project Fusion is completed, before making any judgments about whether to switch or not.