Vantage Point: Bob German's Weblog   The MTC’s and the Build-Buy
Continuum  The MTC’s and the Build-Buy Continuum  Rate This   •
Comments 0  The phrase “Build vs. Buy” has become so widely used
that it has become a part of our industry’s lexicon. In general,
it refers to the decision whether to build a new application, or
buy one “off the shelf.” However there is an implied “either/or”
approach to the decision which can be very self-limiting.  First
of all, consider this idea of building or buying. In a pure
“build” approach, we would have to start by writing an operating
system and then work our way up. Or perhaps we should design our
own CPU chips? Of course this is silly! How about a pure “buy”
approach? Well if an application is very general in nature –
such as a word processor – then sure, it’s likely that a pure
“buy” solution is out there in a shrink-wrapped box somewhere.
But for a complex enterprise solution, at the very least some
kind of configuration or customization is going to be needed to
fit a