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What does it cost to develop a typical custom web application? Perhaps a bespoke customer relationship management (CRM) system that medium sized business might use for tracking customer enquiries and orders?

Let’s say that a client asks us to develop a web application that does the following:

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model for business software is now common. Software isn’t hosted on a server at the client’s site, instead it’s run from the vendor’s own servers. And most modern systems are multi-tenancy - that means there’s only one actual instance of the software running. Each client uses the same instance, seeing only their own data. The benefits of SaaS and cloud hosting should be clear - client’s don’t need to worry about hardware or local software installations and the software vendor can roll out fixes and updates more easily.

You should talk about the technology stack when you decide to ask a software company to develop a bespoke web application. A lot of clients miss this because their supplier has only one preferred technology and so there’s never really a serious discussion about its advantages and disadvantages.

Here are 5 useful tips for anyone who is about to commission their first bespoke software development project. I think these are common sense but they may not be obvious to someone who doesn’t have a technology background or who hasn’t worked with a software development company before.

IT projects that hit the rocks are not that uncommon - most people who work in IT know about at least one project that was delivered late, over budget or didn’t meet client/user expectations. There are things you can do though - even quite late in the day - to limit damage and perhaps recover ground. These five suggestions are a good starting point for anyone who is struggling to manage a difficult project.

• Here’s how Hawaii’s emergency alert design led to a false alarm. Forget hackers, it could be poor user experience design that starts WW3.

• Education technology is a global opportunity. Particularly online language learning platforms in the far East.

Here are 5 pay as you go online systems for training providers that want to publish a course catalog, manage enquiries and take bookings online. Some of them do a bit more - you can manage the delegate after the booking, share course materials, track attendance and collect course feedback. All 5 systems take the pain out of trying to manage enquiries from large numbers of delegates.

It’s always interesting to hear about a software project that’s gone wrong. Not because of schadenfreude but because it’s interesting to see how the reasons are often very similar; there’s a small set of things that cause big problems on a project. The good news is they are easy to avoid if you do a bit of careful planning.

What are the reasons?

• Google launches IT Professional Support Certificate - Self Study. Is this the future? Free to study on Coursera and Google subsidise the end of course certificate so you only pay $49. Needs 8-10 hours per week for 8-12 months.

• Government search site is flooded with hundreds of ‘locations’ for the same providers. Find Apprenticeship Training website - sounds like more time needed on user experience design.

• Facebook job ads targeting younger applicants. Over 40? You won't even see the advert. More on the power of the big social tech companies.

• What happens to the OU in a world MOOCs? Is higher education now a commodity and how can the OU survive?