There's always opportunity. However: the space is, to be frank, kind of boring (mostly just CRUD apps) and has to deal with the government procurement process. Which is why I think no one has come up against Tyler yet. I'm sure someone determined enough could easily eat their lunch but most disruptor types aren't in the municipal CRUD app business.

Municipalities operate about 20 years behind everyone else. For example: asking for AI to determine when grass needs to be cut in medians is just unrealistic when most municipalities don't have the expertise or budget to even produce a functioning mobile platform for their base website.

I disagree with the sibling comment about the data export problem. I worked for a city and getting data in and out, while a hassle, isn't really too tough. Tyler and many other vendors are very lazy with their protections (as clearly evidenced by subject line) and with a bit of know how even very early on in my career I had no issues getting the keys to the city.

You hit the nail on the head- when I used to work for Tyler, the thing that stood out to me was how ingrained they were in so many government systems. Their software isn't great, but they have the momentum of already having sold and been installed everywhere. It's a lot easier for a government agency to increase the spending on a contract with an existing vendor than it is to find a new vendor.

To elaborate on your comment, which is absolutely 100% true, new vendors that require a certain amount of spend (basically any tech company selling you a decent sized system that does anything transactional is probably going to fall under this) usually require the municipality performing an RFP and it's a months long process to implement that and it requires a bunch of approvals up the chain. It's a pain for everyone involved, both the vendor and the bureaucrats in charge of selection. Once a vendor like Tyler that does everything is in, getting a new system from them is instead usually little more than a line item in the budget.

The data-export problem is key. Tyler has no interest in helping you get historical data out of "their" system.

I've been thinking, recently, that the various state/local/fed govts should have to eat their own dog-food: there should be a govt API that is: (1) publicly available; and, (2) the only legal way to access data and make changes (when I'm feeling frustrated, this includes criminal consequences for govt employees that circumvent the system).

Want to get a new well? You can add a well-review task to the queue just as easily as a govt epmloyee. Want to know when your well request will get reviewed? The queue is available.

This is true. Other companies in this space spend a lot of time writing import routines for the old system's data.

Also, the other companies in this space suck too, for most of the same reasons.

I see. Makes sense. Thanks.

Not entirely true. Acquisitions they've made in the past few years are focused on making data easier to access by the public.

Making data more available to the public is not the same as making it easy to import into a new system.