Software development Price?

I am doing a student paper on a made up product or service and I have to do a feasability analysis for this product or service. I would like to know if you know approximately how much it would cost if i were to hire programmer(s) to come up with a software similar to Patient Keeper's software(not sure if you are familiar with this company) that is compatible with a portable device such as a Palm, that would allow the user to retrieve information that is stored in the program and allow it to browse by categories for information. I hope you understand what I am asking. It is nothing more than a rough estimate on price for the development of this software so that I could use in my feasability analysis for this paper.

Software development Price?
It is exceedingly difficult to estimate a price given how little information there is on PatientKeeper's Web site about the software and without seeing it in use.





That said, I do know that there is considerable effort involved in developing PDA-based applications, especially when they act as clients to mainframe data; the problem is complicated, to some degree, by the lack of qualified mobile developers (that's getting better, but it's still an issue).





A wild guess would be that you'd need a three-man development team -- project leader / senior programmer, a database / server guy and a mobile developer guy -- and it would probably take them about a year to develop a good client-server solution.





Assuming salary rates of $130,000 for the lead, $90,000 for the DBA / network admin and $90,000 for the mobile developer, and assuming that they cost another 40 percent for insurance / benefits, and another 25 percent for support (computers / phones / office space / supplies / etc.), that's going to put you at around half a million dollars for the first year.





In truth, a year is a pretty fast-track development pace; I'd say it should actually take about two, maybe three, if you are going to have a strong initial release. But we can be ambitious here, I suppose.





If you were being smart about being in a hurry, you'd also have a Quality Assurance team on hand, as well as prepare for technical support in advance; I'd toss in another $300,000 for that.





You'll need to keep both teams on hand to work on service releases and feature changes as your customers start feeding back to you. They'll need to grow as the products' sales increase.





So, my basic guess is that you're talking about something on the order of $1 million in the first year.
Reply:As the above respondent said, it's extremely difficult to put a price tag on software development without knowing fully what the requirements are.


Besides this, you've to ask yourself the question - Do I want this developed in the US or overseas. The costs for both are significantly different.


MY best guess on how much it would cost is $150,000-250,000 if it were developed overseas.





We are an offshore development company based in the US. If you need any help, we'll be more than willing to assist you.


www.eBizUniverse.com


Thanks and Good Luck!