Hi Andy,
"...comments on Moodle were extremely simplistic though..."
Simplistic, true, but not an argument without strong advocates, ie, the providers of commercial products. For me, I suspect it may be more correct to suggest that the article reflects the activities of the producer's sales and advertising departments. Most education administrators are still somewhat naive when it comes to technology, well, the people who are making decisions anyway, and they are the ones targeted by, therefore most susceptible to, the blandishments of a sales department. (To be fair though, most products now are workable and will provide the service they claim, with a far fewer non-service periods than they used to, so their claims are not entirely unjustified.) Less kindly I would comment that we are all subject to flim-flammery in varying degrees, and sales departments are proven experts in such nonsense. A well done magic show is still more entertaining than a news conference announcing the discovery of gravity waves.
For years, we have heard how "everything is going to the Web." Yet the school administrators I deal with are horrified when I suggest that they would be better off if they dumped their current Client-App-Server architectures, often with devices. I advocate providing just a web service and true BYOD using nothing but Open Source products. They hear "providing just a web service" and shock sets in. The secondary of "...nothing but Open Source products." is just so frightening for them. Worse is "true BYOD", that means they have to surrender the control they think they have, that is just terrifying. Most administrators are suspicious of stuff that is "free" or "Cheap, so I don't use those words anymore, I prefer "much lower cost, and no ongoing licensing or scaling fees." Still not making headway, but gaining some credibility I think. I don't think this is much different anywhere else in the world. Of course, in that scenario, they think their options may be severely reduced to one technology and one set of products, not recognizing the opportunities to be so flexible.
Arrhhggg, enough....