Tachometry Corporation
Traditional Build vs. Buy
Businesses looking to maximize efficiency or streamline their work often turn to technology to solve their challenges. In doing so they are faced with a decision to build or buy their technology. We examine the options and discussion an alternative.Build
Given a set of requirements and the business analysis required to produce them, a business could build a new application from scratch that would integrate seamlessly with the existing systems to deliver the online reports and data entry functionality specified in the use cases. The requirements would be fully met in this model. There are multiple staffing models to choose from, including offshore development and other outsourcing alternatives.However, a traditional custom software build for a system of this size and scope might require several hundred hours for development and testing effort, followed by significant ongoing support and maintenance. The development of your new system would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first year alone. New features would require more development and testing resources at additional expense.
Buy
As an alternative to the "Build" scenario, a business could opt for the purchase of an existing commercial vendor package. For a typical enterprise automation system this might seem less expensive initially (less than $50,000 to purchase and deploy). However, in the "Buy" scenario there would also be periodic license renewals (often 85-90% of the original purchase price) and support contracts (10-15% annually) that would add substantially to the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the proprietary solution.In addition, it will be unlikely that a commercial solution would integrate "out of the box" with the existing systems in a seamless manner. The flow of information from one system to another is unique to each business. This would invariably lead to additional integration costs paid for by the vendor’s own consulting services. Otherwise either the requirements as specified would be compromised or the existing processes would need to be changed to accommodate the new software.
Due to the shortcomings of each approach as discussed, we suggest that neither the "build" nor the "buy" scenario will provide an optimal solution to meet the businesses’ requirements for a custom automation system.
A Third Alternative: Borrow
Tachometry proposes that the business requirements for this type of project are particularly well-suited to leverage an open source software (OSS) integration solution.How does it work?
OSS integration is the process of combining many independent software components into a new custom solution. It is the digital equivalent of prefab construction: innovative systems are built using certified components, reducing the complexity and labor required to create the software. This dramatically lowers the cost when compared to building such software from scratch, typically at least 50%. We have seen projects where the savings surpassed 90% due to the high quality of the existing OSS supply!
Because the software is free, Tachometry charges you nothing for software licensing. Our integration efforts are billed strictly as work for hire on a simple time-and-materials basis. The resulting solution is yours to use and/or distribute under the terms of the corresponding OSS license(s) however you see fit. We create the digital "glue" that binds the components together, and provide a runtime environment to deliver the solution to your users.