I have a friend that works for a company.  They use a software product that is aged, and written in Delphi.  There are concerns at this company about the life of the software company that provides the software (which they pay a monthly license to use).  It's quite specific software.My friend has spoken to his boss and I am being invited in with the potential opportunity to re-write their windows application with a view to also supplying source-code (C#, is what I plan to provide should this kick off).  Giving this some more thought, and even though it could give me some nicely-needed cash, I wonder what is the best option here...The initial requirement would appear to be to replicate this application exactly as it stands.  It was not developed in-house and therefore is used by other companies as-well.  It's large and complex.  While this does not worry me, I am concerned at the cost and time to do this just to bring it in-house.  They don't appear to want any new or different functionality, just a code-base they own.So I guess, my real question; now that you have background information - is it worth me suggesting that rather than re-write this thing dot-for-dot, and feature-for-feature, to actually see what parts they use/don't use - and design an application tailored just for them rather than the generic off-the-shelf one they are using?It seems a huge waste to just duplicate the application just to have ownership, but then I'm a programmer and not a business-decision-maker :)Any ideas/thoughts/flames?
Best opinion to give a potential client
project management;design;applications
Yes!In fact if you don't suggest this - or at least bring it up I would hope that they would be a little concerned.You need to help them read between their own lines. When they say that they want all the feature exactly as the previous application - surly what they are actually saying is we don't want to change our workflow... fine - but I am sure they are not trying to say - and yes and please waste months of effort for those features that we never use and are only there for the other companies.Taking on this role you IMO are not just the developer you are now a consultant and you must try to make sure that you add value to them on both capacity - but they are still the boss so don't get too caught up in the consultant role :-)