Describe the process of Acquiring Application Software?

Process of Acquiring Application Software:

A company can either develop or purchase software for its use. In some cases, the purchased software can be modified/ customized according to the needs of the company. The different options available are summarized below.

Build the software:

If the requirements of the company are unique or specific, then the decision to build the software may be taken. If the organization has the required talent and time. It may be built by the company itself. This kind of development is known as in house development. Also the company may obtain customized software from software vendors. Such software developed for particular companies are called contract software.

Buy the software:

The Company has another option of purchasing, leasing, or renting software from software companies, who develop programs and sell them to many computer users and organizations. The software developed for the general market is called off-the-shelf software. They are readily available and many companies use them to support their business processes.

Customized Software:

The Company can also opt to go for a mix of both buy and build decision. In that case, the company can purchase some off-the-shelf available software, and customize it to its needs by in-house or external personnel. There are software vendors in the market who provide a range of services like installing, modifying software, training end users, etc. They can be
contracted to do the customization.

Computer software have developed so much over the past years that it is very difficult to cover all aspects of the same. System software and application software represents two broad levels of categorization. System software encompasses of the operating system, language translators, and the utility programs.

Application software is aimed to solve particular user computing problems. Open source software is distributed with the source code and freely available at a fraction of cost as compared to proprietary software. Acquiring application software is an important business activity and requires to be managed carefully.