COTS tenders and integration requirements

When buying COTS-based software, the customer has to choose between what is available. The supplier may add some minor parts, but not everything the customer wants. This means that the customer cannot write down his requirements and expect that they can all be met. A scoring system is necessary rather than traditional mandatory requirements. Requirements for integrating the COTS system with other systems are particularly hard because suppliers may integrate in different ways and with different other systems. A related problem is that once the COTS system is purchased, the COTS supplier may have a de-facto monopoly. Only he can expand the system or integrate it with other systems. Experience shows that customers fail to deal with these issues adequately. As an example they may believe that asking for open interfaces is sufficient to guard them against monopoly. We analyze the problems and show ways to deal with them. We illustrate the problems and solutions with real-life examples from electronic patient recording systems (EPR).