these commitments and dependencies have evolved from local software producers to global standard software packages that can be sourced from, and configured by, many independent software vendors with the necessary competences and technical skills.

The users and producers of a software package constitute a network of parties that share a common interest in its destiny. 34 The network is virtual, in the sense that the members probably do not know each other but nevertheless share a common interest in protecting their investments and ensuring the continued evolution of the package. The network indirectly also has other interests in common; for example, the training and education of personnel. 34 An organization’s purchase and implementation of a particular software package thus means that the organization has joined the network associated with the software package, and the level of commitment is equal to the size of the investment (buying and configuring the software and the training of personnel, and so on). To a large extent, the investment represents sunk costs, 10 which make risk mitigation activities even more central.

The network around the package has implications for the purchasing decision and has to be considered as part of the investment decision. Beyond the immediate network of users and producers, the extended network includes vendors, standard setting institutions, government authorities and other compatible software products. It is imperative to choose to participate in the network that is perceived to provide the best long-term benefits as the organization, the network and package co-evolve. In the network the distribution of power and influence depends chiefly on who controls the package and thereby its evolution. In the case of most software packages, the producer wields the greatest power over the proprietary software network, as they own the rights to the package outright and thus control its further development. The producer’s power can be challenged if users unite to influence the producer or even challenge the producer’s ownership; for example, by reverse-engineering the package’s functionality. As an example of influence, the pressure from power-

The users
and producers
of a software
package constitute
a network of
parties that share
a common interest
in its destiny.

ful users has repeatedly postponed the sunset date of Windows XP.

Open source packages, on the contrary, are not owned by a single entity; instead, the software is designed specifically to promote shared ownership. 25, 29 Open source software can appear unattractive and risky to some because there is no central point of control from which advice about the software package and its future development can be sought. Others view these properties as strengths since they protect the standard package from the opportunistic actions of profit maximizing software producers. We shall not conclude the heated debate over open source here, but merely emphasise that organizations adopting a software package need to be alerted to the intimate connection between a software package and its associated network.

Principle Two:
Take a long-term perspective:
Look ahead but reason back.

Many choices made in the early stages of an organization’s use of computers have turned out to have surprisingly long-lasting consequences, as both software and data standards have been shown to be very persistent. 20 Many application types have historically developed in an evolutionary manner, where the first simple implementations were custom built by innovators, and then spread to a small number of early adopters. As the application type benefited its adopters, competing systems became available on the market, and finally the application type became a commodity, possibly to be bundled with other software application types into larger software packages. A similar evolution trajectory will likely describe the development of future application types that first appear as isolated systems. As a consequence, organizations must take a long-term perspective and envision a more complex and connected future, or else they risk implementing tomorrow’s legacy systems.

We emphasize this long-term perspective of software packages. As the pace of change in the computer industry reduces the effective lifespan of most hardware and software to a few years, the organizational data and the