As a consumer, BigCompany Inc. faces a "make" or "buy" decision: If they mission a Perl programmer to do what I have done. . .

In my experience, most companies don't work that way. Either they buy the product, buy the competitor's product, or decide not to buy because the products don't really meet their current needs or fit in their current budget.

Big Company Inc. tries to stay focused. Developing personal productivity software isn't staying focused unless Big Company Inc. happens to be a software developer that is already in or wants to enter that market.

Big Company Inc. is also going to try to look at the long term. Commercial software has fewer long-term downsides such as support and maintenance. Proprietary software has fewer upsides such as the ability to hire people with prior experience using it.

Buying software is low risk, developing it isn't. What you did relatively cheaply on your own would probably cost Big Company Inc. a lot more and would probably take a lot longer. Most companies do not have the resources in-house and, even if they do, those resources are probably tasked to other projects.

Would they hire a contractor? Contractors are pretty expensive. Even researching the possibility could be costly. Quality and timeliness would still be a crapshoot. No, they probably would not hire a contractor unless they felt your product didn't fully meet their needs. You might try to capitalize on situations like that before they get that far. Leverage your existing product by offering customized solutions based on it, for a premium of course.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";