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November 25, 2007

You Can Build Buy Applications (computer programs)

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There's a new evolution occurring in the "software creation" world and it's mimicking the evolution of web sites.

In the beginning days of web site building & buzz, web site development shops (one person to 50 persons or more) were burgeoning all over the place. Today, although web site development is still one of the most critical aspects of your marketing and communication strategy, you can create a web site on your own using do it yourself tools from Homestead, OfficeLive, Register.com and others.

Programming is going through a similar revolution. If you have the need for a particular piece of software you only have two solutions - until more recently. You could hire a programmer to create the application from scratch or you could build an application and have a programmer customize it for you.

Increasingly more and more companies are enabling anyone with some level of technical expertise to create their own application. Coghead is one of these companies which offers a menu of pre-built applications or enables someone to create an application from scratch - all via the web.

Currently Coghead has about 20 applications available for immediate use. You can customize these applications for your own use or create one from scratch.

Smart businesses, on track for growth, are going to leverage services like Coghead to have applications built perfectly for their business. While off the shelf applications are very necessary due to their breadth of features, smaller businesses can also thrive by having micro applications for particular aspects of the business.

Coghead is not alone in this market. LongJump offers a similar service. Listening to their Podtech.net podcast I was impressed not only with their pre-built applications but in with the ease of which you can create applications and the features they build into the programs.

While these applications are web based, if you look back only a few years, services such as Intuit's QuickBase, eUnifydb.net, Caspio and Trackviaenables you to create database driven applications as well.

Going back even farther, traditional database vendors such as Microsoft Access, FileMaker and Alha Software make computer based database software which you can use for a simple inventory database or a much more complex application.

The majority of smaller businesses will not start creating their own applications but will turn to best of breed solutions, such as CRM from Infusion CRM or Entellium . Or they will turn to solutions that integrate various offerings such as offered from NetBooks, QuickBooks, Microsoft Office or other solutions.

The next time your sales team, HR staff or others complain that they need a better way to process something or manage data consider your new options of building an application!

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