(2003-04-08) Post Packaged Software

Joshua Greenbaum on Buy Build Avoid: The IBM and Microsoft sites envision a future replete with custom-developed applications, fueled by IBM and Microsoft's vision of a post-packaged software world. This Custom Software thrust is nothing less than an attempt by two industry giants to tip the next generation of Enterprise applications in their favor, to the possible detriment of the Packaged Software vendors that have dominated the market since the early 1990s...The enterprise software market is currently working to define and deliver a next generation of applications that will have to build on existing enterprise applications and data and make use of Web services and other emerging standards. The question of whether this is a custom applications market or a packaged applications market is up for grabs.

Here's a weird comment: As the market grew, CIOs accumulated a track record for initiating big ERP systems that improved everyone's implementation and return on investment (ROI) figures. By the end of 2002, it was safe to say that packaged enterprise applications had, all other things being equal, proven their value vis-à-vis the custom applications built using development tools and relational databases. I must have missed all those Big Project success stories among the lawsuits.