The current landscape of the enterprise information systems sector is one with a vast selection of software vendors armed with a seemingly endless number of proprietary software applications. In the typical business model, the users of these applications are charged large sums of money for licenses to run the programs, and at times, even larger sums of money for maintenance contracts. For many, the proprietary software model works well. We have seen exponential growth in companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP to name a few.
Their enterprise software application divisions are hugely profitable and their support networks mean that long after a system is designed, configured, analyzed, tested and released, the vendors (and consultants) have been well compensated. And for good reason: the software is often times difficult to implement, extremely complicated, and typically needs proper configuration to meet the needs of most large-scale enterprises.
Note: This is in contrast to the standard application service provider (ASP) model, which can also be called SaaS or Software as a Service. In looking to the future, I believe the real evolution of software lies in cloud computing, and more information can be found here.
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