Buying software by Apple, Adobe or Microsoft, is probably considered by most to be a “low-risk” decision.  These are companies that are likely to be around for many years to come, and support for their products will continue to be available.

The same could be said for buying software from smaller, lesser-known companies, but it requires a slightly different way of thinking.  How can software that you specify yourself be high-risk?  Unless, of course, you don’t know what you want the software to do - only that you’d know when something is “good”, because of the way it looks, or the write-ups it received in the press.  If you don’t know what you want, then the chances are that a few months after your bespoke software is implemented, you’ll find another product with some nice features that you think would be great in your solution - so you approach the developers, telling them you’ve thought of some great new features for your solution, and can they get to work straight-away.  Yes, they say, and the cost will be £X.  They also tell you that if you had included th