(BQ) Part 2 book "Managing information technology" has contents: Methodologies for purchased software packages, IT project management, planning information systems resources, leading the information systems function, information security, social, ethical, and legal issues. | CHAPTER 10 Methodologies for Purchased Software Packages In most large companies today, application software is both custom developed by in-house information systems (IS) staff and procured from an outside source. In fact, the trend for more than a decade has been for midsized and larger organizations to purchase (or lease, often from a service provider) application packages rather than custom develop their own solutions with in-house IS personnel, whenever it is feasible and cost beneficial to do so. Capital expenditures for implementing purchased or leased software packages are therefore a large part of the total IS budget. Of course, many small businesses have no, or very few, IS professionals, so they essentially procure all their software from outside sources. In some cases, the software is not even run on in-house hardware but rather accessed from an external service using telecommunications, often the Internet. An often-cited example of this kind of application service provider (ASP)—or “software as a service” (SaaS)—is . Recently, such software delivered via the Internet has been grouped under the term “cloud computing.” Firms in the software industry have grown across the globe over the past decades, so that today companies can choose from thousands of products that can be purchased or leased as “off-the-shelf” packaged software to be deployed in-house or accessed as an external service. The software industry firms that survive attract new and seasoned IS professionals to be their employees so that they can quickly develop information technology (IT) solutions to respond to new marketplace needs. Firms that purchase or lease a software package also typically need to purchase services from the software vendor to help install and maintain the software for their business. Besides working with the software vendor or software service provider, the purchasing firm’s own system and business analysts work on project teams with business managers to
