I’m probably a lot less of an authority on the subject of choosing Bible software these days moreso than in times past because of the increasing (good) quality of offerings, and the very different paradigms of use that I’ve had. Where I’m very mobile, others might not be as much when it comes to choosing Bible software for.

I can only imagine what kind of difficulty that biblical schools can have here. On one side, you want to minimize support issues by using one or very few variations in software. But, much like choosing which Bible versions to read, you really want to teach people how to evaluate all so they can come to an educated opinion. There aren’t courses for choosing the right bible software though, so what are schools to do?

After reading Karyn’s views on the subject (at Boulders 2 Bits), I’m more convinced that there needs to be better data models with Bible software so that content and features can be easily shared between Bible softawre platforms. And I mean more than just the same Bible formats for the Bibles themselves, but similar usage flows for things like creating search filters, parsing languages, etc. If the companies can come together in this, then the idea of choosing the right Bible software moves more towards the effectiveness of the brand to give the best experience, not necessarly proprietory features. Because we don’t think about how to click links and save bookmarks when we use different web browsers, why should things be so different with Bible software that we have to choose (and get stuck after so long in one system or another).

When you choose your Bible software platform, think not just about what you can do now with it, but what things look like if you were to decide later that the platform no longer suits your needs.