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In the United States, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) is a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) term for commercial items, including services, available in the commercial marketplace that can be bought and used under government contract. For example, consumer goods and construction materials may qualify as COTS but bulk cargo does not. Services associated with the commercial items may also qualify as COTS, including (but not limited to) installation services, training services, and cloud services.〔http://www.acquisition.gov/far/html/Subpart%202_1.html#wp1145508〕 COTS purchases are alternatives to custom developments or one-off government-funded developments. COTS typically requires configuration that is tailored for specific uses and the key characteristic that differentiates COTS from Custom software is that the user configurations are within the defined parameters of the commercial item and not the result of customizations to the commercial item itself. The use of COTS has been mandated across many government and business programs, as such products may offer significant savings in procurement, development, and maintenance. Motivations for using COTS components include hopes for reduction of overall system-development and costs (as components can be bought or licensed instead of being developed from scratch) and reduced long-term maintenance costs. In the 1990s many regarded COTS as extremely effective in reducing cost and time In software development. COTS software came with many not-so-obvious tradeoffs—initial cost and development time can be reduced, but often with an increase in software component-integration work and also a dependency on the vendor, security issues and incompatibilities from future changes.〔McKinney, Dorothy ("Impact of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software and Technology on Systems Engineering" ), ''Presentation to INCOSE Chapters'', August 2001. Accessed January 28, 2009.〕 == Software and services == Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software and services are built and delivered usually from a third party vendor. COTS can be purchased, leased or even licensed to the general public. COTS provides some of the following strengths: * Applications are provided at a reduced cost. * The application is more reliable when compared to custom built software because its reliability is proven through the use by other organizations. * COTS is more maintainable because the systems documentation is provided with the application. * The application is higher quality because competition improves the product quality. * COTS is of higher complexity because specialists within the industry have developed the software. * The marketplace, not industry, drives the development of the application. * The delivery schedule is reduced because the basic schedule is operations. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Commercial off-the-shelf」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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