Question

XBank4u, a local bank, prides itself on providing the latest services available to its customers. Continually launching new applications on a quarterly basis, it wanted to provide something new and easy to use for its customers with a cutting-edge application. The bank hired Kimberly, a Web application developer, to provide the applications.

XBank4U recently introduced a new service, “Mortgage Application Service,” and assigned Kimberly to create the application to support it.

While writing the application, she finds ShrinkWrap, an ASP-based application on the Internet. As the application perfectly suited her needs for the development of the new application, she negotiated a price with the software vendor and purchased it for the bank.

She was successful in completing the project on time, and XBank4u implemented the application Kimberly designed to service its online customers.

1. Was Kimberly’s decision to purchase the application justified?
2. What could Kimberly have done to vet the software before including it in her application?
3. Is it reasonable to trust third-party applications?

Answer 1

1).ANSWER:

GIVEN BELOW:

Answer a)
Never, she had taken a wrong decision. The bank had given her the responsibility to develop the software and according to that the agreement was done, so how a person can purchase it from a third party. In IT industry everything will be done according to the agreement, i)she had broken the agreement, ii) secondly if there are bugs in the software, so she had to again contact the third party company and they may charge money for that which is a loss from her side. iii) The third party software may not support all the requirement of the bank, in that case her customer will not be satisfied, and it can affect her reputation.

Answer b)
She should test the software from every aspect, because that software is a generic software which may not full fill all the module which bank require for "Mortgage Application Service". She can go for black box testing and white box testing for the software implementation. Without proper testing the software may corrupt anytime.

Answer c)
Never, whenever a transaction happens regarding software purchase, it should be followed according to the agreement. The above scenario represents that the bank is not aware about the third-party application which can be very dangerous for the bank. The third party software provider can steal the data of the bank. The third party software provider can do several malicious action which can be harmful to bank. Especially when monetary transaction is happening then the company should be very aware about what the software they are using and third-party applications should be avoided.