For example, they had their own language that abstracts and operates directly over a database. They had their own drag and drop UI builder, that compiles down to a HTML page or a desktop widget - which is again not an ordinary feat. They view code as data, as in even the UI is stored as a configuration and not as some Java code. They had their own VCS back when Git didn’t exist. Of course, all these weren’t best of their class, but they sure did get there ideas right.
All these must have been interesting engineering concepts back during its time, yet there hasn’t been much tech literature on how they accomplished it or what inspired them to. At least not that I know of.
Now that open source is on fire, of course a single company cannot catch up with the pace these open source softwares are racing ahead.
Companies like Zoho and Salesforce are able to catch up because they do two things right.
#1. Cloud
#2. Adopting open-source and making a clever mix of proprietary engineering
The next SAP or Oracle will certainly be companies that get those two things right.