Does the cloud change age-old build-or-buy dilemma?

How the cloud is helping company's build software

Oct. 2, 2009 12:20 PM

Historically, when an organization needed software, it had two basic paths: buy something already built and use it as-is or build from scratch.

Both paths have been fraught with peril, as witnessed by the 2009 CHAOS report that showed only 32 percent of projects being successfully completed and nearly one in four projects cancelled before completion.

The problem with deploying pre-built software is that it is rigid and inflexible. Software builders didn't anticipate the processes your organization developed to meet customer needs and be successful. What's more, they had no plans to implement those changes because many of their other customers wouldn't need them. So you're forced to change the way your business operates just to use the software.

The other option - to build software from scratch - is much easier said than done. Since many software businesses struggle with designing and building software, a company whose core competency isn't software is destined to struggle with the process. What's more, software companies can spread their costs out over many customers; when building software from scratch, your organization has to cover the entire cost.

The cloud ushers in some new concepts that already are showing the ability to solve this build-or-buy dilemma.

First, companies can elect to build their application from scratch - not in a development language, but on a new generation of platforms delivered as a service (PaaS). These platforms can reduce development times by 50 to 80 percent compared with traditional development tools. By using PaaS, the company doesn't need to worry about buying and maintaining servers or other infrastructure, thereby saving more time and money.

Many of these platforms allow you to start with pre-configured common functionality so you don't have to recreate the wheel, but they also allow you to rapidly integrate with other Web services - third-party party applications that bring great functionality to the table.

In short, the build-versus-buy dilemma in the cloud is changing to a build-and-buy win-win scenario.

This post was originally on the Central Penn Business Journal.

Published Oct. 2, 2009— Reads 236
Copyright © 2009 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

▪ How Cloud Computing Can Jump Start Your Recession Proof IT Career

▪ Dynamic Infrastructure: The Cloud within the Cloud

About Treff LaPlante
Treff LaPlante has been involved with technology for nearly 20 years. At WorkXpress, he passionately drives the vision of making customized enterprise software easy, fast, and affordable.

Prior to joining WorkXpress, Treff was director of operations for eBay's HomesDirect. While there, he created strategic relationships with Fortune 500 companies and national broker networks and began his foray into the development of flexible workflow software technologies. He served on the management team that sold HomesDirect to eBay.

During his time at Vivendi-Universal Interactive, Treff was director of strategy. In addition to M&A activities, Treff broadly applied quantitative management principles to sales, marketing, and product line functions. Treff served as the point person for the management team that sold Cendant Software to Vivendi-Universal. Earlier positions included product management and national sales trainer for Energy Design Systems, an engineering software company. Treff began his professional career as a metals trader for Randall Trading Corp, a commodities firm that specialized in bartering and transporting various metals and coal from the then-dissolving Soviet Union.

Treff received his MBA from Pepperdine University and a BS in chemical engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. http://www.workxpress.com

Latest Cloud Developer Stories

Enterprise Clouds Require Service Level Discipline

By Tony Bishop

The Enterprise Cloud Requires a real time infrastructure and a management discipline that understands and can enforce service level discipline.

CloudBench Applications Reports Q3 2009 Results and Business Highlights

By Pat Romanski

CloudBench Applications, Inc. announced its financial results for the three months and nine months ending September 30, 2009. All amounts are stated in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Revenues from BasicGov, the Company's cloud computing solution for local government, gr...

CSC Signs Cloud Computing Agreement With UK Royal Mail Group

By Yeshim Deniz

The new contract is an industry first, with CSC being the first Microsoft partner to lead and win a cloud computing services agreement of this scale. Under terms of the contract, CSC will provide Royal Mail Group's 30,000 employees with access to new IT services using Microsoft's...

GDS International: Global Warming Scam?

By John Funnell

Operates in over 170 countries and is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services. Richard Tarboton talks for MeettheBoss.TV on his role as Head of Energy & Carbon for BT and what they are doing towards reducing carbon emissions.

CA & BMC To Support Salesforce.com

By Maureen O'Gara

CA is going to put its Agile Planner software on salesforce.com’s Force.com platform in the first half to accelerate development time and give users visibility over their development initiatives to reduce time-to-market. Customers are supposed to be able to accelerate the deploym...