producing the package?

˲ ˲ How many companies are already using the package?

˲ ˲How many software companies can configure the package?

˲ ˲ What is the history of the package?

˲ ˲ Is the package built upon open standards?

˲ ˲ How is the fit with other packages?

˲ ˲ What kind of standardization does the package represent?

˲ ˲ Is customization of the package necessary?

˲ ˲ Is there an accessible knowledge base for the implementation and exploitation of the package?

˲ ˲ What are the costs of switching to an alternative package?

˲ ˲ What are the implications of postponing a decision to adopt?

In what direction is the package evolving? And is our company headed the same way?

The principles can be used prior to making an investment and be used to monitor the vitality of existing packages. To illustrate, when a university built a new campus building it came with a free proprietary facility management system with the new building already encoded. However, using the seven principles, the university management decided that even though the package itself was free of charge, the supporting network around the package was too local and too small for the university to invest in encoding the remainder of its buildings into the package.

Another example of the application
of the principles was the company in
the field study mentioned earlier. The
company used the principles to annu-
ally monitor the decision to stay with
a package that had been dominant but
was losing market share. The question
was straightforward: Was the network
of users around the software package
sufficiently large to provide the pack-
age owner with revenue that allowed
it to invest in developing the package?
For a number of years the answer was
positive, but when the network was
deemed inadequate, it was decided to
switch to the dominant package. 17 An
illustration of Principle Five and Six is
as follows: One large manufacturer had
already implemented one ERP system
when a vendor offered a competing
ERP system at a very competitive price.
The manufacturer attempted to switch
but after more than a year of attempt-
ing to implement the new ERP system
the manufacturer had to revert to its old
ERP system. The skill set and knowl-
edge base built around the former ERP
system in practice inhibited a switch.

this research was in part supported by the danish research Foundation, grant number 331958.

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Jan Damsgaard ( [e-mail]) is director and a professor at the Center for applied ICt, Copenhagen business school, denmark school of Information systems, Curtin university of technology, australia.

Jan Karlsbjerg ( [e-mail]) is an associate product manager at active Community solutions, Vancouver, Canada.