In simplifying business process and fulfil the organization needs and objectives, growing companies are investing IT system. Hence, it is important to make right decision whether required software should be developed or can be simply bought. Software which is built for specific company is known as custom or bespoke software, whereas the one which is commercially sold is called packaged or off-the-shelf software. This report will give a comparative assessment between them in the term of the ownership, delivery time, cost, suitability, and sustainability.
Ownership
Generally, custom application development including the source code should be owned by the company. And yet, many companies do not address the copyright ownership issue adequately and programmers often assume that the copyright remain with them. As a result, the programmer can choose to sue the company by asserting the copyrights issue when the code of the software is reproduced, modified, distributed, or even displayed without the developer’s permission.
Delivery Time
When talking about time, it is clear the custom software will have more time in the implementation that require analyzing, designing, developing, testing, documenting, and releasing time. If the company choose custom software, a timeline for completion at the onset of the project have to be established by the software development team to prevent it in becoming too time consuming. Having said that, proposed timeline can be unrealistic and a delay can still occur when the requirement is still unclear.
The Cost
Custom software development is often more expensive since there is a large initial cost required for the implementation. This is just like buying a tailor-made suit compared to buying from the rack. The project development will require a team that includes experts, designers, programmers, etc. to be hired. The cost is basically determined by the complexity of the tasks and the number of users to be served by the system. Also, there might be another cost like the health insurance for those full-time developers.
Suitability
Seeing that there is the word ‘custom’ in custom software, it means that the software is intended to be built according to a particular specification that serve and fit the business requirements just like tailor-made clothes. Custom software will be fully integrated as it is mostly developed using the firm’s own resources. Hence, it is expected for the software to be fit with the existing system.
Sustainability
In most cases, custom software that has been put in place is expected to be usable effectively for about seven to ten years. They will be keep maintained as the business grows in size according the contract and ownership. Particularly, it is inevitable to have an error-free software in a custom development from true bugs that prevent the software from performing expected tasks to minor irritants like interface and peripheral glitches. Fortunately, these bugs can be corrected immediately since the company has direct access to the developers to report the bug and even request to improve the overall functionality of the software.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is clear that either custom software or packaged software has their own benefits and drawbacks. Custom software can be owned and guaranteed suitable for companies, but will need cost and time for the development and maintenance. In contrast, packaged software can be installed as soon as possible with reasonable price, but might not be suitable in the future. The company should analyze their business more carefully in determining required software whether it is worthwhile to develop a new custom software. It can start by identifying features needed and users who will use it.
