On the other hand, during grad school, I developed a LIMS system and order tracking system (about 2004-2005). It was very similar to Quartzy, actually. It was d

On the other hand, during grad school, I developed a LIMS system and order tracking system (about 2004-2005). It was very similar to Quartzy, actually. It was done on the side to support my own research. My university decided in its infinite wisdom to license the tech out to a startup that had very little experience. The idea was that they would take over the system to add the next features that was needed and I could get me back into lab. They were trying to get SBIR funding. The last time I checked, the company folded and my lab never got the new features back. Worst of all, the code is now locked away, never to be seen from again. Even the code that I wrote can't be used outside of that original install. So, I agree that academic centers are usually not very skilled at developing software that can survive, at least the projects that do succeed are generally available to the research community. Unfortunately, it's next to impossible to get tenure working on such projects, so anyone that is skilled at projects of this scale leave academia pretty quickly.