Joy of middleware

So up until now I have always worked on existing projects based on unique game engines, or released all of my own code when I put out a product. So I guess its kind of a blessing and a curse to have hit the point in my independent developer career where I now can't simply develop everything inhouse. I do have several programmers that work for my studio, but with the project we are working on right now and all of its target platforms its completely impossible to do it all ourselves. So I have spent the last few weeks studying several middleware solutions trying to find one that hits all our target platforms, but has a reasonable licensing model, and has at least very close to the features that we need for this project. I wont say specifically which I decided on, but I did manage to find one that while uses a completely different development style than we are used to but has everything but solid server side code. So at least we can develop the entire client side application and be able to export it to all 7 of our target platforms, and simply have to write custom server software for it. I think its a win win, but damn its a hit to my pride to have to no longer have 100% of everything developed inhouse(translation I own all the IP rights). Suppose its just a natural development as my company grows and gets involved with more complex projects

How is that different from using an OS or video drivers or choosing a tool chain (and likely libraries that accompany it?)

You can't do it all. Good luck with your selection. I'm a little disappointed in the problems I run into from time to time. I cranked up the optimization yesterday for some performance testing and the code took a hard fault in some library code. Likely incorrect code generation.

I mean its not really all that different. Ive just always had pride in owning 100% of all the code we put out. This IDE has a "drag and drop" coding system that makes it more friendly for people who are not programmers, and thank god you don't have to use it. Moving into a more detailed level of understanding everything can be done in code other than creating resources which has to be done with the mouse so overall not a bad balance. We already have hammered out the basic server functions utilizing code from my game engine and are working on a pack of simple classic games to get everyone up to speed with the new IDE. Also as I have learned more about it it is actually designed very similarly to my engine, but has more integrated tools and several years more polish put into it.