Designers of a software system generally build one of three general types of software. These types of software are usually considered; canned “out of the box”, customized, and tailored software. Understanding the difference in these software systems is one of the first comprehensive conditions to know when acquiring a new software program. There are positive assets to all three systems. After many months of research and working with these different systems, I have come to the conclusion that tailored software applications have the most benefits and have proven to be the most facile system.

Canned “out of the box” systems are readily available for use upon purchase. The initial cost will usually always be lower then a custom or tailored system. While the low cost and the on demand may be a huge plus, that are many disadvantages to purchasing a canned system. The initial low cost may sound nice but it is important to find out if you will acquire licensing fees. These fees maybe a fee you must pay for each user and can get expensive. Other then the cost, canned systems are responses and screen made up for an application that is sold to each organization using the software. This means that in many cases there will be many unnecessary screens, and in most cases is not user friendly causing it to be difficult for employees to understand. An organization using a canned system will have to adjust their work environment instead of the software working around the current workflow.

Customized software is very different from canned systems. Customized software can be customized to provide exactly what your organization needs. Technical support for customized software will be better because the programmer is more familiar which makes understanding common issues easier. Customized software is easier to understand and is user friendly to employees. Although, due to the fact that this application is customized from the framework on up it will be much more expensive. Customized software is not readily available like a canned system. This time frame can also be a significant amount of time; sometimes taking six months to two years. Another huge disadvantage I found with customized software is the difficulty in upgrading. This whole system is made in code from the framework to each individual screen. Upgrading entails finding and figuring out which part of a large strain of code needs to be changed.

I have found very few disadvantages to Tailored software. Tailored software is much like customized software but where customized software has some fairly important disadvantages, tailored has the answers to customized software’s weaknesses. Tailored software is customized to an organizations needs, it is very agile and user friendly. Tailored software is not as expensive as customized software and there are still the advantages of great technical support. Tailored software is a built framework that was designed by the vendor then tailored to fit all your needs. It is an average of six to eight weeks to have a tailored system up and running. It is easily upgradeable because of the fact the vendor can upgrade the framework with out getting involved with the customized components. Tailored systems are a somewhat new approach to software applications and in my opinion the most beneficial!