Sources of Software

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The Sources of Software

Chapter Objectives

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

½ Explain outsourcing. ½ Describe six different sources of software. ½ Discuss how to evaluate off-the-shelf software. ½ Explain reuse and its role in software

development.

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Software is a big part of any business application

system. Although most software was once written in-house by a company’s own systems analysts and programmers, this practice is certainly not the case today. In today’s thriving software industry, you can purchase software for just about any business situation imaginable. However, every business is unique, and no existing software fits a given firm and its needs exactly. Software must be modified to fit a company’s specific needs. Many times,

a business application is actually a combination of many different bits and pieces of software, purchased or otherwise acquired from many different vendors and integrated by a firm’s internal information technology staff. But where does the IT staff find all the software it needs? That is the subject of Chapter 2. Here you will learn about the many sources of software available to today’s system analyst.

Introduction

Many different sources of software are available, and many of you reading this book will end up working for firms that produce software rather than working in the information systems department of a corporation. But for those of you who go on to work in a corporate information systems department, the focus is no longer exclusively on in-house development. Instead, the focus will be on where to obtain the many pieces and components that you will combine into the application system you have been asked to create. You and your peers will still write code, mainly to make all the different pieces work together, but more and more of your application software will be written by someone else. Even though you will not write the...