| In the early 90s, the IT costs of corporations rose | | | | solutions providers are out of reach for small and |
| irrationally, due to the hype that IT would be the | | | | medium-sized enterprises. Also, the cost of these |
| panacea for all corporate problems. After the dotcom | | | | solutions for smaller enterprises is not justified. Hence, |
| bust, companies drastically reduced their capital | | | | SMEs go for stand-alone applications that are not |
| expenditures on IT. Currently, IT expenditure on any | | | | expensive.MMS software packages have different |
| installation involves a project management approach | | | | functionalities to manage assets in their life cycle. |
| involving different functions, and in some cases, this | | | | Small firms who have tight budgets can choose |
| goes to the extreme of hiring business consultants to | | | | vendors who provide the needed applications. |
| present the business case for an IT | | | | Readymade software applications are available on the |
| expenditure.During the same period, software | | | | internet as demos, freeware and shareware. |
| vendors proliferated. They provided software | | | | Software vendors allow for some products to be |
| applications for all types of industries, either as | | | | downloaded for free for a certain period of time, |
| stand-alone packages or end-to-end solutions. The | | | | usually a month, after which if the customer is |
| initial exuberance and the proliferation faded after the | | | | satisfied the application can be bought.Freeware and |
| dotcom bust. Many software vendors simply went | | | | shareware can sometimes be implemented for |
| bankrupt, leading to the drying up of venture capital. | | | | managing the maintenance function. The freeware is |
| Others consolidated for total packages, and the rest | | | | a sample given in the hopes that a customer will buy |
| were acquired by large IT firms.The big ERP and EAM | | | | the software later. Hence, there is no free lunch. |