Build, Buy or Open Source?

I read this article recently which left me with this mantra:

For common problems use Opensource.
For rare problems use Buy.
For unique problems use Build.

For our email and web hosting systems (for ourselves and for the companies we host applications and sites for), we use purely open source technologies all hosted on FreeBSD, the poster boy for really free software.

For our accounts system, we relied on some tried and tested proprietary software which we bought because we wanted an interface that didn’t suck too badly. We tried some open source solutions and, to be honest, we weren’t familiar enough with the processes of finance to actually start to build our own solutions from scratch. Buying something in made a lot of sense.

For the remainder of our solutions, we’ve had to build. One was modelling a workflow for a local IT company, in effect transforming their paper into electrons. the company had tried all sorts of software and attempted to model their workflow into that of these helpdesk-type solutions which were designed for call centres, for the most part. Their requirements for recording and reporting were such, however, that they needed something custom-tailored to their needs.

I think what it means is to examine what your core business is.

As a technology company it makes sense for us to know about hosting and to have our own servers and the like. For some companies out there, for example, a media company or a small manufacturing company, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for them to host their own email and websites on the end of their DSL lines. A company would have to be a considerable size before I’d recommend they host their own email when they have the choice to do otherwise.