Siebel, Oracle, and PeopleSoft = The Real Software Pirates?

an interesting perspective from AlwaysOn about the business model of large enterprise software vendors:

“Another problem is that software vendors typically develop functional components that must be 'bolted together' at the customer location. This essentially means that the product the customer is buying is unfinished! Under the guise of 'customization,' the vendor or integration partner finishes developing the software at the buyer's expense. This is a great revenue booster for companies like Siebel, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. A tremendous percentage of their revenue comes from 'services'—which is a code-name for fixing software that doesn't do anything out-of-the-box.”

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 16, 2004
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  January 16, 2004
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  January 17, 2004
  What a simplistic comment! The author must have no clue of how a real ERP is designed and what these systems mean.
  
• Anonymous
  January 27, 2004
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  February 12, 2004
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  March 26, 2004
  Hear hear!
  
  I work with an ERP and I can say that this simplistic statement does fit pretty well. We call a lot of the areas that are unfinished "Vapor ware".
  
  The best part is explaining to the people who make the purchasing decision what is and is not there/working.
  
  Shaun