10.4122/1.1000001655
Tumwesigye, E.
E.
Tumwesigye
Vojinovic, Z.
Z.
Vojinovic
Jonoski, A.
A.
Jonoski
Abbott, M. B.
M. B.
Abbott
Towards a new business model in urban drainage modelling and hydroinformatics
DTU Library, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
2005
Conference presentation
New business model
Urban drainage modelling
Hydroinformatics
Sociotechnology
UNESCO-IHE, Institute For Water Education
Institute For Water Education
UNESCO-IHE
Knowledge Engineering BVBA
2005
en
10.4122/1.1000001656
text/xml
A now long-standing view of the software supply-industry is that "software is a product", whereby various software components are combined and coordinated in conveniently packaged forms that can provide solutions to specified ranges of practical engineering problems. The development in the use of the Internet has however more recently brought with it a new way of thinking about modelling, whereby the software can be employed as required, or \342\200\230on demand\342\200\231. Currently, the software developers/vendors sell their often expensive products to organisations that normally have projects from which they are able to recoup the costs of the packages and to pay the associated maintenance fees. Once the decision has been made to purchase a particular modelling product, the change to an alternative (which in each case again may be expensive) can be very difficult to justify. This imposes several limitations upon the organisations involved in the provision of urban-drainage modelling service. Therefore, a more current view is that it may in many cases be better to move away from a supply-driven to a demand-driven market model in which small packets of software are made available to the clients via Internet facilities in such a way that the clients are easily able to assemble these packets into software that serves their purpose for the period that it is required. This paper describes a new concept of hydroinformatics modelling software which has evolved as a response to these new technological