A Custom Made Software can be useful when you do have a specific task to do and no existing software application fulfill the purpose. Now a days Software Developers are one of the highest paid people. A Custom made software requires lots of other stuff apart from writing code & hence a complete software development requires a software company to employ lots of people to work on a single software development project. Managing complete software development lifecycle often requires lots of planning, writing code for it, testing out the software, deployment of the software, writing help documents and finally providing software training.

In order to get a custom made software, you have lots of choices depending on the size of the software. Here size of the software implies what all the software is supposed to do when it is running. Other factors do come into consideration like which all operating systems your custom made software must run on. Yes a single software made can be compiled to run on different operating systems like Windows, Mac OS X and even on Linux using cross platform software development kits. Web based software applications do have an upper hand in terms of operating system compatibility and yes lots of java based applications are made as well which bridge a gap between a desktop based application and a web based application and providing cross platform compatibility.

Custom made Windows Applications often run on various Windows Operating Systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and other Windows Server operating systems. 32 bit Windows based applications run in 64 bit version of the operating system without recompiling. Depending on specifics of a custom made windows application, there might be some tweaking required so as to make the application work across all other Windows Operating Systems. In case a custom made application uses some specific functionality of a specific operating system, it will not run in lower versions of the Windows. On the contrary, Windows also allows an application to run in compatibility mode of an earlier version of the Operating System, e.g. you can run an application on Windows 8 in compatibility mode of Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Custom made Macintosh Applications also need careful planning. As now a days all latest Mac OS X versions work by default in 64 bit mode, most of the custom made Mac OS X applications are built taking into considerations a 64 bit mode of Apple Macintosh. Depending on the target version of the Mac OS X, a custom made Mac OS X application might be designed to work on Mac Version 10.6 onward only. Similar concerns are applicable for linux software development, differences in 32 bit and 64 bit linux versions, licence agreements and so on.

Applications designed for specific operating system can utilize the services of the target Operating System in a better way, whereas a cross platform application has to take into consideration that it must work on all supported operating systems. The Price for getting a custom made application can depend on the software development company you choose, whether you opt for fixed price model or you pay the software developers a flat monthly fee and other agreements with the software company. There can be lots of benefits of Custom Software Development and depending on the time, efforts and money you spend, you need to decide on whether to use general purpose software or get a custom made software as per your specific requirements.