[jrochkind1]

The open source solutions that exist are not very good/difficult to work with. The proprietary-commercial solutions that exist are not very good/difficult to work with.

This may mean that it's a hard space to do something "very good" in; compare and contrast to "ERP" systems. Or "enterprise" systems generally -- an LMS is definitely an enterprise system. (Meaning: purchased for an entire organization; those with the most power in purchasing decisions are for the most part not those with roles as core users; often purchased based on "feature checklists", or "what are my famous peers using"; needs to support a kind of 'workflow', which can vary drastically among different organizational customers or even within a single customer).

Consider when it's a pitfall to actually "give the customers what they are asking for". (pitfall to quality/ease-of-use but not always to sales)

Those making procurement decisions need to have someone to call and complain and ask them to fix things -- even if they don't fix them. It's important for the careers of those making procurement decisions to have someone else to blame -- and "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." This entity to blame hypothetically could be a vendor offering installation/hosting/support for an open source solution... but it's a risky business to be in, when those doing procuring would rather take the safe/familiar route, and the product you are offering installation/hosting/support for, any competitor can too.

[kayodelycaon]

> "ERP" systems

If there is a good one, I don't know about it. :)

[clavalle]

Depends on what you mean by good but there are many that certain enterprises couldn't do without that well outperform competitors and employees would melt into bubbly goo if they couldn't use them anymore -- but they tend to be very custom made for either a particular enterprise or a very niche set of very similar enterprises.

[eatYourFood]

The best you'll get is NetSuite.

[jrochkind1]

exactly