Comment by awinter-py
4 years ago
> According to a presentation at a MuleSoft conference in 2018 they had at the time around 1,800 IT systems, 6 database vendors, and 30 rental processing systems
'30 rental processing systems' interesting opportunity. the airbnb / squarespace rental ecosystem has a bunch of standards for syncing bookings, but I think they mostly amount to exchanging ical files. would be neat to develop a modern open protocol for inventory + then develop a hosting business around it -- applications in cars, retail (like that 'pointy' company google bought), sharing economy
like IBM is doing this now, zero chance their system is usable https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/inventory-visibility?topic=data-...
or this mckinsey whitepaper that's clearly not a thing you can use without a bespoke contract https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Retail/...
What you describe is basically open source ERP exchange protocols, which will never happen, as enterprise ERP software is designed to lock companies in for generations of maintenance contracts.
We were supposed to get all this with the promise of SOA, SOAP, data routers etc, but that never really happened outside of the enterprise.