The saying goes: If you have five hours to cut down a tree, spend at least three of them sharpening the ax. I object. Who decided the only choice is an ax? Maybe we would get the job done better with a saw, or maybe what we really need to do is haul the tree out, roots and all, with a tractor?
Similarly, if you are going to acquire software, the first thing you need to acquire is an acquisition strategy. The fact is there are different ways of obtaining software and different types of software that are more or less appropriate, depending upon the circumstances.
Table 1 below is one simplified way of illustrating the strategic options available to carriers as they consider how to acquire software. The first thing to note in this scheme is buy and build are not viewed as exclusive options but rather components of each strategy in which their relative weight varies from one to another. For instance, most of us would reasonably expect there would be more buy than build in the strategy titled "Integrated Package," and we would be correct.
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