>>years and years of patched and undocumented code that places are finding nearly impossible to read through and clean up.
The lesson is that once you're in, it's not easy to be budged. MS enjoyed the same for years, which is why it's even more remarkable what's going on in mobile devices. The same will happen to Oracle if and when somebody presents an easy escape at which point customers who currently feel trapped will jump just on principle.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
