Building this content management system cost a fortune in programming and project management time, far more than it would have cost if the focus had been on meeting the client requirements rather than building a "product."

"Never mind the incredible cost of developing it!" was the motto from the development manager. "It's going to become a product, and we'll make a fortune reselling it because all the hard work has been done!" (or words to that effect).

Of course, when the time came to sell it to the next client that came along, it rapidly became apparent that the product wasn't really that generic and that various changes would need to be made to fix things.

It also became apparent that the product met the needs of the first client but didn't have anywhere near the features included in competitive off-the-shelf products.

Not only that, there was no high quality documentation. It had been implemented on a less-than-mainstream operating system platform using a less-than-mainstream database server. No one had thought about technical support or ongoing development maintenance of the product.

Even worse, the competition was selling their mainstream, off-the-shelf product with plenty of features, support, documentation, name brand, and feel good factor, all at a highly competitive price point.

The boss of the company called me in to have a look at the situation, to give an opinion on this content management system, and to advise as to what future course should be taken. Should it become a fully generic product? Should it remain as a niche product being sold only to one specific market sector? Should it be ditched entirely?

I had a look at the product. In short it was okay but had nothing outstanding to recommend it. I could easily see that there would be plenty of other systems out there that were more mature, had better architecture, and were feature-rich. I pointed out that building a product isn't just a matter of writing a software application and having a team of enthusiastic developers.

Creating a product requires a real investment of time, resources, and money. A product requires extensive testing, comprehensive support offerings, documentation, features that can stand up against the competition, and most importantly, a serious commitment to sales and marketing.

The boss of the company gave careful consideration to my assessment and the content management system never went any further than the first client that it was built for.