In the late 90s (say, 97-98), I was a partner in a custom software firm focused on helping companies use "Internet technologies" internally -- early intranets,

In the late 90s (say, 97-98), I was a partner in a custom software firm focused on helping companies use "Internet technologies" internally -- early intranets, delivering things via the browser, that sort of thing. It was novel at the time, and we could make money doing it! Wheee! Anyway, we needed to integrate with SAP on occasion, partly because one of our biggest clients was in the middle of a HUGE SAP rollout, employing a small army of Arthur Andersen MBAs, etc. So I went to the SAP technical education conference in Atlanta, to gather info and whatnot. I heard Hasso Platner brag from the stage in the keynote that complaints about SAP's complexity and expense were entirely overblown because "80% of our implementations now take less than 18 months, and come in under $100 million." Y I K E S. (Oh, and the company with the SAP rollout we were working with? Eventually, the combined cancer of SAP and AA billing destabilized them enough that agreed to be acquired by their biggest competitor. Yay SAP!)