After selecting a software solution, the next step is to incorporate it into your IT ecosystem. This encompasses the installation of the software onto your pre-existing systems, the execution of routine maintenance, and finding of software support.
Another important activity is software adaptation which includes the following common tasks:
- Software configuration
- Create / modify databases
- Integrate software into existing system
- Localization of UI and help system
- Making add-ons, plug-ins, macros, workflow scripts for software
Nowadays, there are a lot of useful applications, both commercial and open-source. Maybe you know that some of them are great tools to start business activity; maybe they are even free, but installation, adaptation, and maintenance are difficult and require a steep learning curve.
There are many types of software licensing: perpetual, locked-to-device, subscription, consumption, MIT, GPL, LGPL, EPL, etc. For sake of simplicity, let us assume that software falls into two categories: commercial and open source.
Open Source Software
The main pros of open source software are its low cost and the simplicity of the legal relations. The main cons are poor documentation, support absences, and bugs.
For example, the open source applications QGIS, LIBREOffice, and Moodle are very useful. They can help you boost your business activity, but their installation, configuration, and adaptation to the existing system require appropriate skills, experience, and knowledge.
QGIS requires spatial database installation and configuration, selecting or creating plugins, appropriate scripts for script runner.
LIBREOffice requires the writing of the macros for integration in the system and the simplification of the workflow processes.
Moodle requires the creation and configuration of the PostgreSQL or MariaDB database, the configuration of PHP, localization, etc.
You need to test open-source software after installation because of possible bugs.
Commercial Software
The main pros of commercial software are good documentation and absence of the bugs. The main cons are high cost, complex legal relations and some times complicated support.
For example, Microsoft 365 is a great application suite and encompasses many wonderful web-based services and applications. But if you receive hundreds and thousands of emails in one folder, create each email and Word document from scratch without using templates, or manually copy / paste data from the database into an Excel worksheet or Access DB, you will waste valuable time and consequently money.
ArcGIS is wonderful GIS software for creating, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data and maps, but it requires a steep learning curve.
Route4Me is a well-known route planning and optimization software, and it has high-quality support plans. But if you need to migrate data to this system, extract data from a database and prepare input for Route4Me, or create a custom application that consumes the company’s endpoints, you need a person or team with appropriate experience and knowledge.