Long thread so I'm not sure if someone has already made this observation, but -- reading your description of the single entrenched supplier to your industry tha

Long thread so I'm not sure if someone has already made this observation, but -- reading your description of the single entrenched supplier to your industry that comprises your company and a set of competitors, made me wonder about "going bigger". This is the idea: yes start a team to develop a greenfield modern solution to meet your needs, but do that with the goal to eventually spin it out as a separate company that is also a vendor to as many of your competitors as you can sign up. The benefits to this approach are that more resources can be brought to bear, meaning better developers can be hired, and the cost can be shared between the participants. This has been done in the past for example by the airlines with Orbitz, and media companies with Hulu.