Everything that you have said is accurate. From a historical perspective though, 20-odd years ago large companies had their own massive in-house "concrete-ware

Everything that you have said is accurate. From a historical perspective though, 20-odd years ago large companies had their own massive in-house "concrete-ware" that ran on hugely expensive locked-in proprietary hardware with proprietary OS and DB, and huge cost and complexity of operation and changes. SAP then offered R/3 which ran on whatever DB/OS/hardware brand you wanted. The other big difference was that it was multi-lingual and multi-currency and quite adaptable - and it had a GUI. It was so desirable - there was basically no competitors. All the bad points you mention were trivial in comparison to the benefits for a multi-national. Now of course things are different. For starters, Mosaic and the web came along. SAP have tried to keep up with the amazing changes in ICT in the last 20 years but of course if you want to do that and remain profitable and look after your massive and diverse user base then things get complex. They haven't left anyone behind - there's been an upgrade path the whole time since the 70's and that's one thing at least that is admirable.