2 ms·

Unless it's paid-to-build, the software company's risk is creating the software and then not being able to sell it because a different software is better. Comm

Unless it's paid-to-build, the software company's risk is creating the software and then not being able to sell it because a different software is better. Communal software isn't always custom-built, the majority is normal off-the-shelf stuff, just focused on that niche. My involvement is limited to a small city a few years ago, that may be different in a large city as Munich if they have lots of custom requirements they don't share with other cities.

em-bee 7y ago
if the software already exists, then it's not a risk question, but one of cost. the buyer can not shift the risk to the seller. how would that go? put out a tender for a completed solution and then wait until someone builds the software on their own risk, hoping to win the tender? that's like a designer competition, and those have been considered unfair.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Software doesn't just "exist", it's created. And spending time and/or money on creating means taking on the risk to fail. Again, they're not putting out contracts for bidding for every software they want, just like most enterprise software isn't custom made. They buy lots of software from companies. Those companies have competitors, so cities can choose which software to buy. Those companies shoulder the risk of not being chosen and having wasted the money. If the cities built it themselves, they would not be able to choose who to buy from. And if their self-built software sucks, they've wasted money and have a shitty software. One that they may not be able to replace, because there's no longer a market for that kind of software. Public endeavors into building things (airports, train stations, rapid train lines etc) in the recent decades in Germany does not predict a bright future for these kinds of things.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    i get your point. what i am trying to express is that if things are done well, then a government will not develop custom software if a suitable product already exists. of course software is created. but the risk a company takes in creating is irrelevant to the decision a government makes. that risk is from the past. you said that the government can either choose to take a risk by developing their own, or offload that risk. but that is not the decision it needs to make. when it takes an existing product it is not offloading that risk, because the risk that vendor took is independent of the risk of the government. the situation should be rather like this: either a solution exists, then we use that solution with a small or no risk because the vendor already took that risk in the past. or the solution doesn't exist, then we don't have a choice but to custom develop with all the risks that that includes. at no point is there an option to offload an existing risk. the only way to offload an existing risk would be to say: we wait until vendors come up with solutions. (it may be that i am getting hung up on little details here. i believe that we are actually mostly in agreement in how a government is handling custom development)

em-bee 7y ago

if the software already exists, then it's not a risk question, but one of cost. the buyer can not shift the risk to the seller. how would that go? put out a tender for a completed solution and then wait until someone builds the software on their own risk, hoping to win the tender? that's like a designer competition, and those have been considered unfair.

luckylion 7y ago
Software doesn't just "exist", it's created. And spending time and/or money on creating means taking on the risk to fail. Again, they're not putting out contracts for bidding for every software they want, just like most enterprise software isn't custom made. They buy lots of software from companies. Those companies have competitors, so cities can choose which software to buy. Those companies shoulder the risk of not being chosen and having wasted the money. If the cities built it themselves, they would not be able to choose who to buy from. And if their self-built software sucks, they've wasted money and have a shitty software. One that they may not be able to replace, because there's no longer a market for that kind of software. Public endeavors into building things (airports, train stations, rapid train lines etc) in the recent decades in Germany does not predict a bright future for these kinds of things.
- em-bee 7y ago
  i get your point. what i am trying to express is that if things are done well, then a government will not develop custom software if a suitable product already exists. of course software is created. but the risk a company takes in creating is irrelevant to the decision a government makes. that risk is from the past. you said that the government can either choose to take a risk by developing their own, or offload that risk. but that is not the decision it needs to make. when it takes an existing product it is not offloading that risk, because the risk that vendor took is independent of the risk of the government. the situation should be rather like this: either a solution exists, then we use that solution with a small or no risk because the vendor already took that risk in the past. or the solution doesn't exist, then we don't have a choice but to custom develop with all the risks that that includes. at no point is there an option to offload an existing risk. the only way to offload an existing risk would be to say: we wait until vendors come up with solutions. (it may be that i am getting hung up on little details here. i believe that we are actually mostly in agreement in how a government is handling custom development)