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Simon Johnston has an interesting comment on selling dev tools/environments. Sometimes when he goes to customers sites, he first pitches all the fancy JSP/JSF front-end stuff Rational/IBM has, then he shows off the fancy schema stuff, and then...

So with all of this cool and exciting technology why do the [customer's] faces looking back at me not look happy? Because, while all of these things may be necessary to the finished application, they are not the application. What I want, what I need, is the tool that helps me build the application and of course although there are certain known application patterns I will need to define my own or at least customize what is provided. I need the tool to provide guidance and structure so that I understand that I need pages, schema, classes and when and why I need them. Today's developer tools (and not just those from IBM) focus very much on the individual task, a better page designer, a better schema designer and very little time on application design.

My understanding of software factories is that they're an attempt at solving that problem, needing a "tool to provide guidance and structure so that I understand that I need pages, schema, classes and when and why I need them." I've only listened to Udell's audio interview on the topic and quickly flipped through the book, so my knowledge of software factories is pure hype-fueled. It seems like the idea is that a vendor just provided a bunch of template/prototype code and code-builders that are domain specific and extendable. So, you might have the "HR software factory" that comes pre-loaded with a bunch of HR-centric stuff. The HR department shells out the bucks to get the factory, and then customizes it. Like I said though, my knowledge is just based on the marketing message.

I'm sure Rational/IBM has an equivalent type of thing, maybe MDA? I haven't quite figured out how MDA is different than CASE stuff, but I haven't read anything about it, so I'm probably just hung up on the "Model" part.