December 9, 2003

Software - all in one or piece by piece

Developers of e-commerce offerings for small to mid-size businesses no longer can afford to rely on the virtues of a single Web editor, shopping cart or stand-alone hosting application. The trend today is toward one-stop platforms that integrate all the software and services required for building, operating and maintaining a leading-edge storefront on the Web.

Up until a year and a half ago, for example, software and service products provider Lagarde offered its customers an out-of-the-box software product for designing e-commerce platforms on their own. Back then, the message was, "Buy it from me -- good luck, see you later," Lagarde executive vice president Mike Levin told NewsFactor's CIO Today Magazine.

"We offered templates and took the approach of 'e-commerce made easy,'" he said. "But e-commerce isn't easy."

In reality, it costs a smaller business "far less to buy a customized turnkey package than it would to round up the talent, software and services for producing an Internet storefront on their own," Levin added. (full story)

My spin: News factor raises an interesting scenario here. Do businesses prefer one package with
e-commerce, web site, possibly contact management and other tools built into one package. Or do they prefer to pick 3 - 4 differnet business process software components and string them together (often not in many cases).

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