>
>Just a week or so ago the Los Angeles Times ran an article about
>companies who bought into the idea of supply-chain software and
>ended up eating it. They were going to streamline their operations.
>The only problem was, the stuff didn't come in shrink-wrapped
>packages like the stuff from Egghead and install as easily as a CD
>copy of some computer game on one's personal computer. They forgot
>that the data in their particular industries required that the
>software be extensively "configured" and programmed (and the
>programming being unique, and highly layered, it tends to be
>bug-prone in ways that software used by hundreds of thousands of
>consumers isn't).
>
>Supposedly half of the companies underestimated cost and deployment
>time by at least half.
Excellent point, Peter K. Also, once the software company sends one of its own--instead of a third party--to work on the installation, the company can no longer have the revenue from the sale recognized--something like that. The sale is not considered complete at that point--which is not like hardware. Having to comply with SEC regulations on revenue recognition then is going to continue to make pretty darn difficult the kind of earnings growth on which the boom in small and medium cap companies had been based. But this isn't to say that the software is often not quite good once the arduous process of its installation is completed.
RB