Features vs. Generic

Are the habits in software buying changing?

Is there a change afoot in the way in which companies are buying and paying for software? Of recent it has become clear that there is not that much software being written within most consumer companies, that they are not employing many programmers, that they are not employing many consultants either. Yet they are still buying fully functioning software packages.

It seems to me that this may mark a change in the wind. If companies continue to buy fully featured packages, do little customization on them and then make use of them either by accepting that the package only does a little of what the need, but they get value from that, or that they are changing business practices to fit the new software packages (wouldn't that be a change!) meaning they avoid paying for software changes and consulting costs.

Where is my proof? I have seen several smaller companies recently buy fairly expensive software packages, do nothing to them, and get value from them, simply due to the feature rich nature of the products. I look at companies like BEA Software, seller of the WebLogic EJB engine, and see that they are making less money simply selling the EJB engine and more money selling (ostensibly) fully functioning product based on the engine, targeted into certain market segments.

What could this imply?

If companies that are consuming software are not to employ programmers and consultants, then software companies are once more going to be top dog. New companies (and old software types, too) will need to put out product of a less generic nature, that is up and running out of the box. As the features needed in the software product are expensive to implement, the product will likely have "retail breadth" - it will be able to cost more. The buyer will have some capability to contain costs, but less so as they now trade in- built features for less customization on their end. It's an interesting trade and one an economist could have a field day with: What is the balance point between the cost of a fully functioning piece of software that mostly does what you need, and a buying cheaper software that needs lots of expensive programmers and consultants to tweak to your needs?

For the programming community it probably spells the slow way back to prosperity. More product companies will be needed to provide the expanse of products that companies (unwilling to write their own) will need. These companies will have very small user bases, which will make their economics quite marginal, but they could end up employing a sizeable body of technical people, rebuilding wages and allowing for industry expansion once more.