[NikolaNovak]

ethbr0 provided valuable perspective, but just to respond:

1. I've updated my post to make it more clear how change management is involved: Using native tools we would be, literally, "changing the application". RPA is not changing application; it is automating what people already do in application. It can get philosophical whether this is a real difference or semantic one; but in corporate world, it's real :). And ultimately in techie world too: ERP is not touched or customized by the RPA (which would have had meaningful and permanent repercussions for troubleshooting, vendor support, upgrades, retrofitting,etc). On Ops side too, we use same process and tools to troubleshoot an error in our application whether a human or RPA bot did it.

RPA bots still go through change management as such; but their risk, cost, implementation time and other profiles are simply vastly different than actually touching the COTS ERP application code. I would not necessarily use RPA to change most of the applications internally made by a company; but they're a valid choice for automating a externally sourced software.

2. I have limited experience with Selenium but I would agree that there are broad similarities. They even remind me of old Mercury/HP LoadRunner or SQA Robot. Just, couple of decades of advancement and different focus.

3. I feel "Clearly intended for a Microsoft focused audience" is some kind of insult, and somewhat uncalled for; but note our application runs on AIX on p-Series, FWIW.