In the early 90s, the IT costs of corporations rose irrationally, due to the hype that IT would be the panacea for all corporate problems. After the dotcom bust, companies drastically reduced their capital expenditures on IT. Currently, IT expenditure on any installation involves a project management approach involving different functions, and in some cases, this goes to the extreme of hiring business consultants to present the business case for an IT expenditure.

During the same period, software vendors proliferated. They provided software applications for all types of industries, either as stand-alone packages or end-to-end solutions. The initial exuberance and the proliferation faded after the dotcom bust. Many software vendors simply went bankrupt, leading to the drying up of venture capital. Others consolidated for total packages, and the rest were acquired by large IT firms.

The big ERP and EAM solutions providers are out of reach for small and medium-sized enterprises. Also, the cost of these solutions for smaller enterprises is not justified. Hence, SMEs go for stand-alone applications that are not expensive.

MMS software packages have different functionalities to manage assets in their life cycle. Small firms who have tight budgets can choose vendors who provide the needed applications. Readymade software applications are available on the internet as demos, freeware and shareware. Software vendors allow for some products to be downloaded for free for a certain period of time, usually a month, after which if the customer is satisfied the application can be bought.

Freeware and shareware can sometimes be implemented for managing the maintenance function. The freeware is a sample given in the hopes that a customer will buy the software later. Hence, there is no free lunch.

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