On Tue, 4 Jan 2011, Takashi Tome wrote:
That was true some 30 years ago...
That's still true today. There's an insane amount of in-house stuff still kicking around, for various reasons, some reasonable, some not so much.
Actually, I think the problem is quite different. Big telco's network is a very complex thing - well, you all can say, Internet is too... But if we see some "similar" business like aircraft-defense and professional video market, we see some similarities: there are a lot of tricks and "non-documented standards" that make those software a kind of mistery for foreigners. Put in other words, software knowledge is not enough, you must have a deep understanding of that business and the history of the system itself...
I believe that would be the intersection of COTS and NIH ... "Yup, we're using $SOFTWARE, but we have a few in-house customizations..." cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."