> I don't know how they stay in business since every developer I've ever met had a bordering on irrational hatred of them. I'm sure you know the answer. Oracl

> I don't know how they stay in business since every developer I've ever met had a bordering on irrational hatred of them. I'm sure you know the answer. Oracle doesn't sell to developers. They sell to the management of non-tech companies whose upper echelons are staffed by people with expertise whatever they do, which might be selling dresses or making plastic pipes. For what it's with SAP uses exactly the same technique. For something truly difficult to explain, try Google replacing Oracle with SAP. https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-migrates-from-oracle-financial-software-to-sap/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-migrates-from-oracle-fi... Years ago when I invoiced Google they asked me to enter the invoice into their portal. (Generally, transcribing a vendors invoice into your accounting systems is something you pay your own employees to do of course, but big companies know how to apply the screws.) I remember that web form. It proudly said is was created by a summer of code student. It was ugly, it was concise, it was straightforward, and it just worked first go. Then Google moved to SAP, and used SAP's Aruba service to do the same thing. Aruba is layer upon layer of poor design, outages and bugs. Now, if a Google employee sends you an purchase they often offer to "get it into the system" for you. The reason is Aruba is almost unusable, so it they need whatever service is being offered badly enough they shepherd it through. I can only guess, but my explanation is assume SAP sold the system to Google's accounting department. Somehow, SAP's sales found a way to bypass the ocean of expertise inside one of the greatest software engineering companies on the planet and sell the system to a pocket of people who had no idea about what they were buying. Colour me impressed with SAP sales.