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I work with software engineering and in norwegian (I'm from Norway) we have a word, "fagsystem", which refers to a software system/application that is specialized to handle a certain kind of business or professional context. Examples are my best bet to clarify, I guess:

  • A banking back-end system that keeps track of a customers transactions and bank engagement
  • An insurance back-end system that keeps track of a customers insurance premiums
  • An airline booking system
  • ...<

I've tried using translate.google.com but the translations seem a bit funny: "professional system", "task system", "specialized system".

I would be very thankful for any suggestions on how to express this in English.

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  • There really isn't a single term for this. Marketing divisions love to come up with new terms to describe their exact software package. I would check to see if your competitors are using an English phrase and start from there.
    – MrHen
    Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 15:04

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Various examples,

But what you might be looking for is the grand-daddy of all
ERP = Enterprise resource planning

Alternatively,

Enterprise Resource Planning and Management.

Very general terms that can be used on application of any type of software on a company-wide level

  • Enterprise solution
  • Enterprise system

e.g.,

Representatives from oracle assured us that they have an enterprise solution for our requirements, by packaging various enterprise systems together.

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As mentioned in a previous answer, application software may be an appropriate term. The phrase enterprise infrastructure software is not in wide use (so far as I know) but enterprise software is a commonly-used phrase. According to wikipedia, enterprise software (also called enterprise application software or EAS) is purposed-designed computer software used by organizations such as businesses, schools, clubs, retailers, government, etc, as opposed to software used by individuals.

An older term (which may be jargon) is stovepipe systems or stovepipe software, which refers to closed-source vertically-integrated software systems that cannot share information with other applications used in an organization. Most airline reservation software, banking software, defense-program software, and various industrial software systems fell into this category during the early decades of computer use; and some software in those areas still does. This use of the word stovepipe is reflected in the following sense shown in wiktionary:

A channel for body of information which is compartmentalized in such a manner that some parties which might be interested in its use or be able to utilize it are restricted from access to it.

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  • Thanks for the suggestions. However, I still feel that wordings such as Enterprise Software or Enterprise Application Software still is a bit fuzzy in a context where I'm trying to describe different bits and pieces of a system. 'Everything' can be described as Enterprise Software depending on context. As such it is not explicitly enough to communicate the fact that I'm referring to the businessy, core parts.
    – Kenneth
    Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 14:47
  • I agree that enterprise terms are fuzzy or nonspecific, but disagree they apply to “everything”. Many or most enterprise-software-stuff vendors characterize their packages as usable for management of the largest of companies (eg Fortune 500 companies), which is quite different from how ordinary small-business packages for taxes, payroll, and accounts payable or receivable are characterized.
    – James Waldby - jwpat7
    Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 15:24
  • In my line of work, every piece of software we construct is called application software or application.
    – Blessed Geek
    Commented Nov 21, 2014 at 5:04
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The adjective "dedicated" might be what you want here. The phrase "a dedicated <...> system" is not uncommon.

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Another possible phrase, if you need to distinguish it from more general applications, might be industry-specific system.

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  • Not bad, but still kind of fuzzy in my opinion. Until a better alternative comes around however, I've used "core business system"
    – Kenneth
    Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 14:49
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All of the examples you gave are examples of Transaction Processing Systems, often shortened to Transaction Systems.

Wikipedia has this to say about Transaction Processing Systems:

Transaction processing is a style of computing that divides work into individual, indivisible operations, called transactions. A transaction processing system (TPS) or transaction server is a software system, or software/hardware combination, that supports transaction processing.

In reality, most application software which deal with either incremental changes or financial operations can be modelled as transactional.

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Line-of-business application

might be the term you're looking for

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  • Can you cite established usages of this term that match?
    – Davo
    Commented Jun 30, 2019 at 15:46

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