That’s a great point, Dave. TCO should be considered for any technology purchase and as you say, it’s likely that a custom solution will have a higher TCO than off-the-shelf software.

There is one additional reason for selecting a software package: the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). If you calculate the total cost of a software solution over a 7 to 10 year period, which is a standard, the cost of the maintenance of the custom software solution will likely exceed the cost to build the original system. This TCO alone will make the packaged solution a much more attractive decision, from a financial justification perspective.

The analogy is wrong, too. I take no money from vendors. In one sense it makes no difference to me which vendor they choose. But I stand by my position on the value of off-the-shelf products versus custom-built software. I’ve written and spoken about it at length.

As for be-all-end-all, I’ve never written or spoken those words.