2006 Volume 14 Issue 4 Pages 53-68
In recent years, some local governments have adopted new procurement models for information systems (IS) in order to foster the local software industry. One model is to allow a joint-venture formed by several software firms to make a contract with the local government. The other model is to divide a set of IS development work into small tasks and to procure them from multiple software firms respectively. Both of two models aim to contribute to growth of the local software industry through providing the local software firms, most of which are small, with the tasks. In this research, we describe these models by a concept of architecture and argue that these models with the same purpose have contrastive effects as a result of architecture. Through a comparative case study, we conclude that the latter model is likely to be more effective than the former in respect of giving opportunities of entry more widely to the local small software firms.
