Rent a Custom Application

Renting a custom application can fill a major need for businesses of all sizes who either can't or don't want to invest money in software development. 

Does This Sound Like Your Situation?

You have a fairly simple project that would solve a lot of problems for your business or department, but trying to get development budget for any but the most critical projects is an exercise in futility.  You have to spend an incredible effort to justify the project, and that is just the beginning of the costs to your organization. 

Once the project is approved and the development team is assembled, you will have to invest many hours in meeting with them, communicating your needs and your vision.  You will spend a lot on that because your project is already starting to look fairly costly and you are not going to get a second chance.  If the project really is critical, your organization is suffering every day you don't have it.  If it is not, you are beginning to wonder if it could possibly be worth all of the money and effort.

Depending on your organization and the development team, it could take weeks or even months before coding even begins, and many months longer before you see any software.

Does your project qualify?

You need a simple application. 

Simple is often hard to define, but a database application requiring less than 25 tables and only simple forms and reports would certainly fit.  (Most projects are database applications.)  We are getting more efficient all of the time, so each passing day makes us more able to consider larger projects under this program.

You know what you want. 

Figuring out what you want is the expensive part of building software.  Unless they want something extremely simple, most people do not know what they want unless they already have it.  You are likely to qualify if you have an existing Microsoft Access or similar application that has simply outgrown it's current platform.

You want a Web application.

Yes, we do build Windows applications, but we currently do not offer them under this plan.  The reason is simple.  Windows applications are much more expensive for us to build and maintain.  We simply cannot afford to offer them under this plan.

You want the application built with Microsoft tools.

Although our team has experience with a wide variety of development tools and platforms, we favor Microsoft tools because they provide us with the means to create and deliver our products within our budgets.

How Much Does It Cost?

Surprisingly little!  In fact, many of our clients spent far more on maintenance of their old software than they now spend for monthly rental of brand-new replacement software that cost them nothing.  But you are probably looking for specifics.

Pricing is done on a form or report basis.  Each form or report costs $50 per month plus $5 per control or data field.  Thus, a data entry form with five fields, an OK or submit button, and a Cancel or Back button would be $85 per month.

Brochure-ware pages (pages requiring no programming more complex than a couple of hyperlinks) are $25 per month if we do graphic design and layout.  If you already have a set of brochure pages that you are happy with, we can usually integrate those into a Web application for little or no charge.  (Naturally, you will not be charged rent and you will retain ownership over pages you create or provide.)

Thus, for a small application with four forms, four brochure pages, and three reports, the monthly cost is typically right around $600, slightly more if we are also hosting the application.  A larger application with a total of 25 forms and reports is going to cost right around $2K a month. 

When Does Payment Start?

You pay nothing until the application is ready for you to use.  While the application is under construction, you pay only for the parts that are already up and running.

In the phased delivery plan we use, the parts of the application that you need first are built first.  When they are ready and you start using them, you pay only for those parts.  You pay nothing for the other parts of the application until they are online!

What is the Down-side?

We own the software.  You agree to rent it from us for a minimum of one year.  That's it.  You, of course, will own the data, but the software will be our property.

If you decide you want to own it after we have built it and you have had a chance to use it, we will be delighted to talk about a deal.  You probably will find this is far less expensive than doing your own development would have been, and it takes the risk out of the process for you.  We need to make a profit, of course, but our clients generally prefer to keep renting the software because they could not maintain it for our rental costs even if we gave them the software.

How Does This Work?

The first two weeks are devoted to requirements specification and database design or re-engineering, whichever is required. 

Note carefully that we did not say requirements gathering.  You should know your requirements before you begin this process, and they should be written down.  We can help with that, but that would be an extra charge and it can add considerable time to the process.  Nailing down the requirements is often the most difficult part of building software.

At the end of two weeks, we want to have a database structure in place that both your organization and our organization is happy with.  Our rapid development process is database-driven, and this structure will be the foundation of our development effort.

Once the database structure is agreed upon, our next step will be to come up with a data migration plan if necessary.  That is, if you are importing data from a legacy system to new upgraded software that you rent from us, we create software that moves the data from your existing application to the new data structure.  In most cases, there is no charge for this work (a potential savings of several thousand dollars over traditional development plans).