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Advanced
How To Guide
Choosing eBusiness vendors and software
1 . Introduction
This guide addresses both the selection of eBusiness
vendors and of eBusiness software. Both terms are rather
broad, so in the context of the guide a definition is
appropriate. eBusiness
vendors include:
- Website
development/hosting companies - companies who develop,
maintain and in some cases host websites; there
are also specialist hosting companies who do not
develop sites but merely provide the infrastructure
to host them
- Application
Service Providers (ASPs) - companies that offer
individuals or enterprises access over the Internet to applications and related services that would
otherwise have to be located in their own personal
or enterprise computers
- Infrastructure
support companies - companies who supply, install,
maintain and support local and wide area networks
and related software and hardware
-
Software development companies - companies who provide
software development services, often based around
a proprietary core of standard software, which they
will enhance based on user requirements
eBusiness
software refers to off-the-shelf business applications
software such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
or financial software. Of course, such software also
has an associated eBusiness vendor, but in this case
they are primarily selling a product, with some associated
support services. The other eBusiness vendors described
above are primarily selling a service, although in the
case of the infrastructure support and software development
companies, this differentiation is not always clear
cut.
To further confuse matters, some of the larger companies
offer products and services in more than one category
e.g. leading ERP vendors also offer ASP services.
We assume here that you have already undertaken the
development of an eBusiness strategy (see associated
guide Formulating
an IT/eBusiness Strategy link ), which should address
the fundamental decisions about whether you should develop
or buy-off-the-shelf software, develop or enhance your
website, outsource business applications to an ASP or
keep them in-house, enhance your networking capability
etc. The guide picks up the process from this point
by outlining how you should choose appropriate eBusiness
vendors and/or software help you implement the strategy
Not every part of what follows is relevant to every
class of eBusiness vendor, but there should be enough
commonality to allow you to pick and choose the bits
that are most relevant to your situation. A separate
guide in this series deals with the selection of ISP's
(Internet Service Providers) and telephone connections.
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