I've spoken a lot about the potential that Team Foundation Server provides as a framework for creating very powerful software development process tools. I've also spoken a lot about supporting your software development department with a dedicated development team. These two ideas go hand in hand. Let me expand on that here. When a company wants to support their business processes with software, they have two choices: buy a product off the shelf; or build a custom software solution. Actually, there are three choices, but the third is a hybrid of the first two: customize an off the shelf product. The software your company creates for the sprocket order fulfillment system is an electronic manifestation of your company's business processes. You have significant amounts of money set aside every year to improve that software so that it better captures your business processes. You know that COTS software won't be an exact fit for what you are doing, your processes are what give you an edge over Read More...