Yep! And as a couple of other folks have noted, a lot of that is because you're often not just buying COTS software. You're purchasing/licensing an entire solution to one or multiple business problems that involves software but probably also interfaces & integrations and possibly also custom development of new features. If you consider payroll systems and you're a large enterprise, the odds are high that you have multiple payroll systems globally (by country, usually), and they all need to talk to your HR systems, and they probably also need to talk to your ERP (or whatever your employee data system of record is). This is not trivial.
The same is true of many other enterprisey systems: CRM, ERP, MRP, factory operations, industrial controls, ....
The complexity of an enterprise business systems + IT environment makes most startups look like a piece of cake. The lifestyle and type of challenges aren't for everyone, especially most entrepreneurial types, but don't just poo poo big business.
p.s. I have grown accustomed to having to speak to a sales person to get quotes, but what bugs me more than anything is the cold calls I get from IT outsourcing companies, especially the ones that have a token sales office in the US but are 100% located offshore and try to hide that fact.
The same is true of many other enterprisey systems: CRM, ERP, MRP, factory operations, industrial controls, ....
The complexity of an enterprise business systems + IT environment makes most startups look like a piece of cake. The lifestyle and type of challenges aren't for everyone, especially most entrepreneurial types, but don't just poo poo big business.
p.s. I have grown accustomed to having to speak to a sales person to get quotes, but what bugs me more than anything is the cold calls I get from IT outsourcing companies, especially the ones that have a token sales office in the US but are 100% located offshore and try to hide that fact.