These companies are selling finished products to other companies. Think ERP. SAP sells one too, and so does Microsoft I think. Oracle’s I assume uses oracle db,

These companies are selling finished products to other companies. Think ERP. SAP sells one too, and so does Microsoft I think. Oracle’s I assume uses oracle db, which will require separate licenses and support. So by the time Oracle cranks up the price lever, the business is too deep to get out. When you see these ads about “how they enable businesses” or how “they empower dreams” this is because what they sell is so unspecialized that they can’t really explain what it is they sell. They sell mostly crud software with forms connected through custom workflow engines that are templated for different industries, all on top of their core technologies (for licenses) and with integrations to almost every system know to man. Because if they do not have one, they will bill the next customer to build it. When they talk to actual tech companies, they probably laugh when we can’t figure out what they actually do. We’re children playing with Postgres and node apps while they’re owning entire markets every quarter. Took me a while to realize this, but the need they serve is just that people want their businesses to work, including complying with all laws, do payroll, keep customer lists updated, send documents to the CEO for approval, order supplies from China and produce financial reports. Every business with a decent size will need that, so Salesforce, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft and friends, with help from McKinsey, Accenture & Co pick up the slack, with kickbacks all around.