Plan B - Getting to grips what 'real' businesses charge for software

[d000hg]

Since the responses have been surprisingly helpful, I'll carry on...

If you are selling bespoke, is it normal to actually sell the thing or cahrge for development and then charge a license on top? It seems to happen but always struck me as practically daylight robbery to charge for permission to use something they paid for!

[vetran]

Since the responses have been surprisingly helpful, I'll carry on...

If you are selling bespoke, is it normal to actually sell the thing or cahrge for development and then charge a license on top? It seems to happen but always struck me as practically daylight robbery to charge for permission to use something they paid for!

suppose it depends how much existing code you use. If you write from scratch just for them then it would be cheeky (but not unusual)

But if you use existing code & build on that then why not. e.g. you have already written a library to communicate with 'Big product' and you then write a tool for the customer - then why not?

[tomtomagain]

If you develop something for a client from scratch then they would have a good claim on owning the "IP" for that product.

In which case you would be unlikely to be able to charge a license fee. You may well be able to charge an annual maintenance contract.

If the client is not careful then you could end up owning the IP. They might not really want to own it. They might even let you license the product and to continue development on your own $s.

In which case you can then go and flog the same product to their competitors. That is the holy grail of enterprise software. Get client A. to pay for product development ( as discussed before that's easily into the $1M for any decent sized product ). Then sell it to their competitors for a license fee + configuration charges. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made that way.

[SueEllen]

Was his name Atul? They probably just misinterpreted what they were asked to do.

Wait until the client asks for the code - it happened on a project I was on.

It resulted in one very p*ssed off client as they owned the IP to the non-existent tool.

OK the consultancy did give the client something but it was cr*p.

What was more funny is that the consultancy gave it in an obscure language. Unfortunately for them the client had someone who had developed in it.