Pine Valley Furniture

Problems and Exercises Ch. 2 (p. 45)

2. Review the criteria for selecting off-the-shelf software presented in this chapter. Use your experience and imagination and describe other criteria that are or might be used to select off-the-shelf software in the “real world.” For each new criterion, explain how use of this criterion might be functional (i.e., it is useful to use this criterion), dysfunctional, or both.

The most common criteria for selecting off-the-shelf software include: flexibility, viability of vendor, documentation, response time, ease of installation, cost, vendor support, and functionality. Other criteria that might be used to select off-the-shelf software include familiarity and bias. This criterion can be both functional and dysfunctional. It is functional because due to the employee’s familiarity, the software implementation will require less or no training. It can also be dysfunctional because companies might choose not to use software because the employees are not familiar with it. This can lead to the company using old technology since software is always changing and improving. Other criteria that could be used include compatibility with existing hardware and systems software. This is functional because it would reduce the need to obtain different hardware that would work with the new software. Also because there would be fewer conversion errors between the new and existing software when information is transferred between the two.

3. In the section on choosing off-the-shelf software, eight criteria are proposed for evaluating alternative packages. Suppose the choice was between alternative custom software developers rather than prewritten packages. What criteria would be appropriate to select and compare among competing bidders for custom development of an application? Define each of these criteria.

The criteria that would be appropriate to select and compare among competing bidders would be cost, flexibility, and viability of vendor. Cost...