Products Versus Solutions
By J. Carlton Collins, CPA

Is anyone else out there confused by the growing trend by accounting software publishers to refer to their applications as "solutions" rather than "products"? I am. What's going on here? The best I can tell is that the term "product" insinuates that the applications will meet your needs right out of the box whereas the term "solution" insinuates that the applications must be tweaked, configured, and customized in order to meet your needs. I wonder, is against some hidden set of rules to refer to your application as a product if substantial consulting fees are necessary in order to make that application run right?

I also think that the term product has been disappearing at the same rate that the product box is disappearing. Not too long ago accounting software publishers spent a small sum of money to creating "packaging" for their "product". This consisted of attractive cardboard boxes containing manuals and the like. Nowadays the publishers refer to them as "solutions" and the application comes on a plain set of CDs. A few years ago I could always count on visiting the publishers web sites and finding "box shots" for all of their products. Nowadays, there are a declining number of  box shots to be found. I wonder - in order to refer to an application as a product, does a company have to package that product?

Carlton's Products Versus Solution Scorecard

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