It shouldn't happen to an IT consultant
Spend your time doing business, not IT.
Friday 19 September 2008, 9:51 PM
Is it really yours?
This is common in the world of bespoke software. I'm currently sorting out the IT issues faced by a client in the specialist distribution business (no, really, it is not at all shady, however that sounds). Some years ago they commissioned a bespoke order management system. An upgrade is overdue, the business has expanded and taken on work not planned for when it was written.
Their contract with their original software developer says the makers retain copyright, it does not even give them right to see the source, let alone modify it. They are very lucky the original developers are still in business and still, I suspect, pretty good at their job but I don't rate my clients chances of negotiating a good price.
The moral's obvious, when it comes to bespoke software, even if it means paying a premium, make sure you really own what you think you are buying.
PreviousComments on this post
Nice post Adrian,
It reminds me of a less than scrupulous software developer pal (who shall remain nameless) of mine that smirked as he (or could be she) had built in a few shaky floors to ensure that the client would need to come back for more.
Seriously though, I've just come back from Microsoft's ReMix 08 developer convention in Brighton and we had this sort of "inspirational programming" talk from a guy call Bill Buxton who is one of Microsoft's principal architects - and he used lots of software construction vs. building construction examples to illustrate his points.
Did you know that in the bricks and mortar construction world anywhere up to 20 per cent of a project's total costs are taken up by the "design" phase? Maybe if the software industry moved even just a little bit closer towards that kind of ratio then we'd see that your bespoke order management system people might have the modularity they needed to expand with less pain.
Adrian
I think the real issue here is one of IP and that before a creative ideas person ever engages a software developer or designer or anyone else for that matter, they should make sure each has signed an IP rights transfer agreement.
TFD
Hi Adrian,
In this case the original software was well designed, but the business has changed so radically I doubt any degree of modularity could have helped avoided more a lot more coding. But I agree modularity is important. I'd also suggest any specification for bespoke software, should insist only common data storage and data exchange methods such as SQL, XML, OLE etc are used, and of course well documented.
I spoke to one of my architect clients, he said design costs are normally in the 6 to 12% of construction costs, he moaned it's often not enough so it seems both industries have that in common.
Adrian
