As enterprise systems grow in size to perform ever more operations for an organization, the software system itself becomes increasingly complex and hard to maintain. Add the fact that organizations typically customize these applications and it becomes clear why organizations end up with ever-increasing annual software maintenance budgets. Is there an alternative model to enterprise wide systems that try to do it all? What if third-party developers produced mutually compatible components or modules for enterprise systems? Such components would plug in to a central system much like a printer, mouse, monitor, and modem plug into a personal computer. If third parties wrote individual components, they might make them more closely fit the needs of specific types of business. With a better fit, these components would require less customization. Organizations could upgrade or replace components individually and only when needed. So what is the current state of the art? Visit 20/20 Software Inc. is Web site (www.2020software.com) and uses its “Compare Software” feature to research applications.
a. Identify a system that runs on more than one server operating system.
b. Identify a system that runs on more than one database platform.
c. Describe 20/20 software’s revenue model.