1. A small college has been using the same system for the management of student and course data for almost three decades. Moving forward, it has narrowed its options down to two: The first is to contract a student management system from an established vendor that has more than 50 percent of the market and has a relatively good reputation in terms of the quality of its product. The established vendor has not, however, been particularly fast in integrating new technologies (such as mobile access or AI-based analytics) into its offerings, and its products are only available on-premises. The second option is to join a few other colleges in a new development process for which the college's general ERP provider is developing a new module for student management. This vendor offers all of its products through a SaaS model The company promises that all the required basic functions of the system will be available in a year, both as a web-based product and a mobile app, and that once basic functionality is implemented it will heavily focus on products that analyze student performance.

Compare these two options and analyze their benefits, disadvantages, and risks, using criteria found in Chapter 7.

Criteria o Quality, fit, and growth paths of the solution architecture o Vendors reputation and financial viability o Vendors support capabilities o Cultural fit o Vendors approach to tailored solutions and version management o Vendors track record in implementation o Vendors size and power compared to the potential client