developing your own software application versus buying a complete software package?

Question

Customization often appears to be the best of the both worlds, developing your own software application versus buying a complete software package. The concept is that the only work the enterprise will need to complete is a little tweaking for the product to work. Why is this a risky strategy? What factors contribute to the risk?

Answer 1

My view on this is avoid customizing if possible. I see many times companies invest so much into developing "perfect" software and forgotten why they were doing it at the first place - to improve efficiency in their businesses.

By the time the software gets somewhere, business requirements changed again. And because the team is so keen on developing the "perfect" system, targets keep moving.
Senior managers who championed the custom development grew tired of the project but didn't want to loose face, ended up not giving it the attention (push) to complete.
Project managers often lack the experience or authority to draw the line somewhere and stop the moving target.
Not to mention a "too" customized software system will loose its technical support from its supplyer.
Use $150/hr for customizing software, costs can be out of control and not to mention piling on costs for subsequent system updates or moving to newer version of the software.

Some level of customization is always needed. A good and experienced project manager could help make sound decisions.

For each customization request always ask whether the business process is the way it is out of habit (this is the way we always do it), or can it be make more efficient by adopting a new (system) way.

Again a good project manager who understand your business and can see the big picture with good negotiation skills will often save you a lot of time and money.

Best wishes.

Answer 2

Some pcs will be ready vista especially if you have xp ready. In my ubdersatnduiing for a really good vista running compter you will need 1GB ram,directx9 gtraphics card,modern motherboard and I'm not sure if thats all that's diferent.You also need quite a bit of GB's(gigabytes) but your xp computer probarbly has enough.If your computer is vista ready you could then buy the disk and install it yourself but many people have said that they recomennd to be installed by a computer expert.Hope this helped.

Answer 3

I've worked in that industry. There are significant risks with developing your own. Some are ...

- Lack of support
- Debugging (commercial software has usually had the benefit of thousands of users looking at it for several years ... when writing your own, you will likely find bugs for years)
- Lack of staying current
- Lack of adoption of best practices