I made a comment recently, on GapingVoid, and it reminded me of a joke that we used to have at SAP amongst my admittedly cynical group at the time. (I tend to be one of the world's confirmed non-joiners, and like SAP because it was set up by a bunch of people who had obviously thought the same way, and the culture fitted me fine once I got used to the idea that actually it was OK to be like that.)
"There are three wonderful phases in the career at SAP. Five years selling it, five years consulting on it, and the rest of a long and happy career trying to show people how to get rid of it."
Now this wasn't based on anything much other than the experience we had all had of software. Companies like McCormack and Dodge, MSA, Lawson Software, Cullinet, etc, had all come and gone in this space, and we didn't really expect that SAP would be any different. (Bear in mind in 1993 when I joined, R/3 had just been launched, and the company had 2,500 people.)
Only it never happened.
SAP has now done something that only IBM with the Mainframe, and Microsft with Office and Windows have ever done. They have made the standard, and no-one necessarily cares enough to make another one.
Take the mainframe. Back when IBM was ruling the roost, there was a lot of computer companies that were smaller in the business, and they were called the BUNCH. (Burroughs, Unisys, NCR, Control data and Honeywell.) Were did they go? Into oblivion.
Microsoft is another well documented example. They killed off not only all DOS competitors, but also all Office competitors, like Wordperfect, Visicalc, Harvard Graphics, Corel Draw, etc. And perhaps the biggest competitor they killed off was DEC, the old Digital Equipment Corporation. That is a perfect case study of a "good enough" competitor, the cheap PC, killing off a much better technical product, the VAX. (Lot of people still remember the VAX fondly, and still wish to hell that someone had managed to get Olsen's head out of his ass.)
SAP versus JORP(S)? JORP(S) - JDE, Oracle, Retek,Peoplesoft, (Seibel?)
Winner takes all. Forever.
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