Off the shelf

You can classify software according to where it came from. And one of those classes is "Off the shelf".

A company produces a piece of software and sells it as a complete product i.e it is 'off-the-shelf. Customer cannot ask for any special changes just for them.

For example, Office software, CAD software, Accounting software packages are normally 'off-the-shelf'.

The great advantage of off-the-shelf software is that the cost of development is shared amongst all the customers, who may number in their millions e.g. Office software. The profits made are enough to encourage the developers to create even better \ more advanced versions of the code. These are then released as 'upgrades' to the existing code.

See also 'Bespoke software' in the glossary

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: Off the shelf software

2020-10