Why the photo? Well, this post is about the aftermath of thoughts percolating since IO2009, and the result of conversations with various people...I've heard quite a bit of talk, (in different contexts), about "standard applications". Standard applications are a good thing generally, and definitely make life easier for people who have to deal with IT.
I hope that when people talk about "standard applications", they not going to wait for vendors to innovate and supply a "solution" - I can think of times when in-house development, or open-source solutions can be useful, at least in the short-term:
- proving worth/value of a "solution" (e.g. where there's risk that it might fall flat, or conversely, be really popular)
- no vendor supplied product is ready (often people will develop stuff to suit their own needs, and then be nice enough to share it)
- there's a "niche" which provides little incentive for a vendor to develop/sell a solution.
- a vendor supplied product exists, but needs tweaking or customisation... I'm thinking here particularly of Umlaut which is used in conjunction with SFX - which is nice enough to be a relatively "open" system (from what I can tell).
- consider the availability of a commercial solution (will there ever be one?)
- develop and use solutions from other providers
- put their stuff out there (in-house development might be risky -perhaps this diffuses some of that risk??)
